Cruel Sparks
by Xyliette
Summary: Set in the universe of the episode "If/Then". Simply, how Derek and Addison could have gotten to Seattle with their still crumbling marriage. Will feature minor appearances by other characters and pairings established in that episode. Multiple parts.
1. In the Middle of This Nowhere

**...**

 _In the Middle of This Nowhere_

 **...**

 _A/N: See bottom of page._

 **...**

"Too big," Addison murmurs, looking over at her husband who is absently staring at the wooden beams in the ceiling. Too big and she hates the master, the kitchen, and all of the outdoor space. They're standing in the middle of a 11,000 square foot monstrosity that reeks a little too much of her upbringing while simultaneously feeling like a bachelor pad and for the hundredth time in four days she contemplates hiring a new real estate agent. One that will actually listen. It'd be nice to have anyone listening these days.

Derek wraps an arm around her waist as they play the happy couple. "It's way too big," he says, like he thought of it first and its all she can do to not scream at either person in the carefully staged room. She feels like her head is going to explode when he starts talking about the way the kitchen has been laid out confusingly.

She liked this location, hates that she feels like she is in a concrete bunker, and their agent, Jack, thought this would remind them of New York. Of home. Not that she wants that reminder.

She's been in Seattle for less than week and is already not impressed.

Derek loves the houses out by the water, mentioned something about getting a boat. She thinks he just wants the chance to take a ferry everyday. They agreed to disagree seeing as it would take too long to get to work to properly consider.

Jack mentions something about putting an offer in on this relic from the 1900s and Addison says she'd like to take some time and they'll get back to him later today.

On her way out she's already contacting Savvy for a different recommendation.

 **...**

 **...**

It's the most time they've spent with only each other in months, maybe years. His skin is itching, she can tell. The way he keeps playing with his tie, pokes at his dinner, looks around helplessly for the waiter to make conversation with.

And it was his suggestion, going out to dinner. Trying to find some new places to love. But the truth is, she doesn't love it here, and doesn't think she ever will. It's damp, and she's been sick already since their arrival. The traffic is horrific while walking isn't much of an option either, not in the same way New York was, and the only thing she's enjoyed, a small french bakery, is hard to get to and cramped by tourists visiting from the market. She hasn't found a decent salon, shopping is challenging, and the parks are nothing in comparison.

They moved here to work on it. To save themselves. Their shell of a marriage.

That's what she thought.

That's what he said when he carefully propositioned her. Sat her down with a glass of red, turned off the TV, stole the journal she was reading. He'd already put out feelers in Boston, Los Angeles, and Denver. Everyone wanted them, he said, it'd be a fresh start.

She told him he could just try and come home more than once a week. Try and make it to any of the plans she had made for them. Try and not chastise her like she didn't know what was going on with the practice. Stop sending Mark as a placeholder. Answer his phone when Kathleen called and save her from that weekly conversation and head shrinking.

Any of those things would've been as effective.

But he wanted Seattle.

 **...**

 **...**

"This is nice," Derek sighs, wrapping his coat tighter around himself. It's May but there's no sign of spring or warmth.

Addison leans into the railing, losing her balance. The Space Needle is no Empire State Building. The gradual swing of something unsteady, the wind, she can't take much more.

"Viewfinders," Derek points out. Proud of himself for remembering that she loves them.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Addison replies, eyes beginning to frantically search for the nearest exit.

 **...**

 **...**

The only thing that's been a delight is the ease with which she's worked her way into Seattle Grace. She didn't have the fondest memories of Richard from New York, but they're past it and she's found she rather enjoys teaching. Kepner, however, she could do without. There's just something she can't put her finger on about the woman that keeps her on edge. In fact, all of the residents are awful in their own way, except Yang who has made it abundantly clear she isn't entertaining anything but Cardio, not that Addison didn't try and sway her with intriguing cases and puzzling surgeries requiring the most delicate and dedicated of touches the one god forsaken week she was assigned to her floor.

The greatest surprise is how hard Derek works at keeping up appearances. This hospital is smaller than the one they occasionally shared in New York. They see each other more often. Run into each other in hallways and he pecks her cheek, they get coffee together before meetings, once he even sent her flowers for seemingly no reason.

Her office faces a courtyard and she had heard the murmurings of how perfect they were. Of how amazing it was that they were still so in love after all those years. It's hard to shatter people's reality. She's learned that much in life. Plus she's an excellent secret keeper, it's practically the only thing her parents passed on in their wayward teachings.

She didn't necessarily hate that he had spent some energy on her either. It's better than New York where he used to speak to her about surgeries in random elevators, chart anywhere but in his office where she could find him, and at the height of her despair when he would page other surgeons in place of her, he said because he knew she had plans later and that it might interfere. So, he could remember, he just couldn't bother to show up, she had whined at Mark one evening at a charity event. He left fifteen minutes later with some blonde and she wound up miserably drunk and stumbling towards her front door three hours later.

The dark part of her enjoys how Derek has had a harder time fitting in here, how no one seems to recognize his brilliance or patient care. Ellis is always pushing him for more, and even though he would work twenty plus hour shifts before they moved, he now seems tired and forced for inspiration. He used to talk all the time about clinical trials and if he could just get the backing for this and that, but Seattle has stolen that spark.

Even his hair seems flatter than usual in the dampness. Payback is nice.

 **...**

 **...**

It's still too big. The house, the one they settle on. It's blue with dark trim, white doors and windows. It has too many bedrooms, a backyard for their new gardener to enjoy, and a guesthouse that will never get used. Once Bizzy found out she was moving to the West coast she was practically ostracized, not that she was exactly on speaking terms with anyone in her family except her brother. She knows Derek's family will inevitably make an appearance, but she's holding that off for as long as possible by not answering calls or responding to emails.

"Which rug do you like?" Addison asks, placing one of a thousand magazines in front of Derek's face, annoying him as he tries to read the paper at the kitchen counter. They're missing a lot of furniture, Derek wanted a fresh start in a new town, Addison wanted to redecorate.

"I don't care," he grumbles and then looks up apologetically. Sometimes, she senses, he knows he's illogically unreasonable, a complete ass to his somewhat undeserving wife. "You pick, you're better at this."

Addison sighs and closes the magazine. He didn't really help with the brownstone, but he at least placated her. She saunters off, briefly happy that the house is big enough to lose herself in, not that he's going to come looking.

In the end, after only one more attempt to engage him, she hires a designer and a decorator who fight with each other and a bunch of moving companies because she says she is in a hurry, for what is unknown. Two weeks after it's all done, Derek tells her he likes it while she's brushing her teeth over the sink, even leans in for a minty kiss.

There's a lot of white and gray and pops of yellow and blue and it all might be more feminine than if he had actually gave a damn.

She doesn't reply.

 **...**

 **...**

"It's a trailer," Addison comments, carefully stepping a heel down into the wet, soggy ground. It's rained for three days straight at this place.

"You hate it, I knew you'd hate it."

"Good job." She throws her hands in the air. They've known each other for a long time, she's not sure what he's playing at here though by calling out her reaction. Anyone could guess she would hate this after a ten minute conversation.

"Jack found it, come in, I want to show you something."

The tin can is freezing, but for some reason there's bedding and Derek's fishing rod and other oddities he must have dug out of the boxes that remain in their detached garage that shes grown to loathe. She has no idea when he did that. Or how he managed to hide this. Or why he and their ridiculous ex-real estate agent now seem to be best friends.

"I figured," he begins, spreading papers over the tiny table, "we could build our own house. A bigger office for you, make something we really want, out on this beautiful land."

She peers at the blueprints, the pencil marks he's made, the scribbles in the margins. She used to study with him, his chicken scratch, they shared notes. That's still the same, one of the few things that's withstood a decade of their relationship. It soothes her in a way that almost nothing can these days. Unchanged, unlike so many other things, she breathes it in. "It's almost an hour from the hospital."

"We're department heads, our lackeys can cover," Derek shrugs, zipping his jacket. "Come on, let me show you around."

She feels a spark as he grabs her hand, a brief brush of fingertips. There's no one around to witness the display, the gesture. It's not for show. It sets her gut ablaze.

They kiss by the river, under a large pine tree, rain slipping between green needles and landing on their spontaneous embrace.

And she thinks, as he tugs on her jacket to bring her closer, that maybe this is what they needed. The dewy, chilled air. The deep cover of the forest, the rumblings of the stream to her left. Maybe they needed Seattle, maybe he was right.

"We're going to want a bigger bathtub," she tells him that evening, nestled to his chest, his fingers working through her hair absentmindedly. "And I'm not staying here ever again."

"We'll see about that," he says softly, grinning. "I have ways of getting you out here."

 **...**

 **...**

"I'll be gone for three days," she announces, the top of his head barely visible beyond the barrier of the shower.

The thing about carelessly disappearing from a town you've established yourself in is that it leaves a lot of loose ends. She's been back and forth for the last month, trying to hand off patients, finishing with those she couldn't bare to disappoint. There are a lot of neurosurgeons, she told Derek. There aren't a ton of people with her qualifications. There aren't with his talent either, but he doesn't mention otherwise surprisingly. It's one of their constants- who is more important in their field, and comparatively which field is more important on any given day or case.

It's a delicate dance, the back and forth. She can tell that Ellis' patience, however, is wearing thin.

She estimates about three more trips before she should be able to handle everything via email and phone calls. Derek practically ran from his practice, his best friend left in the lurch, the abstract look of horror when Derek gleefully announced their almost immediate departure.

Mark.

Derek seems content to throw away everything that happened before New York, including people. She's never been able to escape like that. She clings, desperately, to people who don't deserve it. She recognizes this, but it's not easy to fix.

"Ok," she hears him yell, turning the water off and reaching blindly for a towel.

"We should redo this bathroom," Addison mentions offhandedly, looking around at the abundance of cerulean tile. It's not distasteful, it's just so off from everything else in the home. She left it because it was in the basement, next to the gym, in Derek's man cave area.

"I like it," he huffs, clearing water out of his eyes. "You staying with Mark? The realtor said we have walk throughs this weekend."

"Yes," Addison replies. She doesn't really have an interest in selling their brownstone. Property is always a good investment, she reasons, but Derek disagreed. They can't seem to arrive on the same page of anything so she's humoring him by allowing strangers to traipse around something she lovingly thought would be their home for years to come.

She suggested couple's counseling as part of their move. To try and rectify the fact that he hates talking to her, and that she's grown to resent him breathing in the same room as her.

They've gone once in an entire month of living in Seattle. Derek thinks his therapy is fishing, she thinks it is ignorance.

 **...**

 **...**

"God, I missed you," Savvy exclaims, waiving the bartender back over for a refill.

"I know," Addison moans. "You should move to Seattle."

"What's in Seattle?" Savvy looks as disgusted as she feels about it.

"Rain. Me?" Addison shrugs, catching the eye of the gentlemen in the back booth by the door.

"Weiss would die."

"People need lawyers everywhere," Addison reminds her dearest friend.

"Let's go dancing, it's been forever," Savvy exclaims, dragging Addison up out of her seat before she can object. She loves Savvy's spontaneity, her sometimes reckless need for fulfillment and joy.

She mentions it once, in the back of a cab. They do talk about their relationships, their husbands. Her life here is privy to the mistakes, the fights, the bitterness that seems to all be bottled up in their new home.

"You guys will be ok, you're Addison-and-Derek," Savvy assures her.

And she thinks for a moment, that it could be true. Except the fiery wreck she sees far off in the distance waiting for them.

 **...**

 **...**

"I'm lonely Derek," Addison says quietly as she sits next to him on their couch, in front of a crackling, but still fake fireplace. The therapist said to share, to be honest. It's worth a chance.

"You have friends here, that Cardio doctor," he argues, moving imperceptibly away.

"You have friends here," she refutes. For some reason he really hit it off with Jack. Then there's the oncology doctor, and the anesthesiologist he plays basketball with on Thursdays. "Her name is Callie, I could invite her over," she mulls the thought, "Have you worked with her husband? Owen?"

"I don't think so," Derek replies, placing his book over his knee. This conversation isn't ending.

"They have kids though," Addison remembers.

"So?"

"So, they're probably busy."

"Yeah," Derek agrees, looking to the emptying glass of scotch in front of him for what she can only assume is an easy out of this.

"Richard lives in this neighborhood, that might be nice," Addison suggests.

"Ellis," Derek refutes. No ways he's having the chief and her bubbly family over for dinner.

"Maybe some other time, when we are settled."

"Yeah."

They return to silence, not unwanted, but unresolved, as so many things are. The fireplace pops and brings her attention away from Derek's three day stubble that he refuses to shave. He's always near now, more so than before, but she feels worse here. There's no one to share with, to complain about Derek's beard growing initiative, to plan weekends with, to explore the city with. After a lifetime of people being paid to be around and to care, Addison is acutely aware of when they don't want to be.

 **...**

 **...**

At first it is a few random bouts of nausea, and she doesn't get sick frequently. Thinks it must be the anxiety of trying to run a business on opposite ends of the country, of trying to keep the facade of her marriage from cracking in their new place.

Then she finds herself strangely attached to a patient. A mother whose baby is not going to make it out of the woods. And there have been many of these, but the couple loves each other so much. They look so damn happy, she doesn't want to destroy them.

She waits an entire day, when she could've told them an hour after examining their child. It's just a feeling she gets with preemies. This one just on the cusp of viability, having extreme breathing problems, a heart malformation, and a body that just can't will itself to keep surviving.

They didn't do anything wrong, in the whole scheme of things. And she tried to prevent the labor from progressing, but she was only able to hold it at bay for so long. She reasons she likely feels guilty for not being able to do more, make more decisions before the baby had to fight out its chances.

Their boy, David, makes it two excruciating weeks in the NICU before giving up. Each day she leaves with a headache and a sense of impending doom looming overhead. When it finally happens, she locks herself in her office for three hours and pretends she doesn't hear her pager buzzing away in its drawer.

The final straw is the sheer exhaustion that has overwhelmed her the last two weeks. She blamed jet lag for as long as possible, and this taxing case, but even with a full eight hours of sleep she still feels like she needs a nap by three. And how in the world could this have possibly happened after eleven plus years of being so damn careful.

The annoying little lines signal her catastrophe into reality.

 **...**

 **...**

Her skirt feels tighter than it should. Her heels are new and breaking in her feet hurts and makes her calves tightly wound. She just couldn't deal with the rain ruining her hair for another day in a row so it is pinned back, pricking at her scalp. Derek's bouncing his foot the way he does when he crosses his legs and it is driving her crazy.

She digs her nails into the side of the chair in the therapist's office and closes her eyes briefly. It's their second visit and she almost had to sacrifice an organ to get him to agree. Dr. Whitman is not without talent, but they aren't really playing fair, pretending like they don't know what is going on, how to talk about how they feel. And he is trying, she'll give him that, to pry them from their comfort zones, to get them to open up. To just get them to come back in a timely fashion has been a challenge for the poor man.

"That's all the time we have," he sighs. He's annoyed, she can tell. She's annoyed too, by Derek, by her clothes, by her sudden inability to tolerate the only thing she enjoys having for breakfast- beloved green juice.

"I'll meet you at the hospital," Addison explains, dodging out of the room.

 **...**

 **...**

"Have you talked to him?" Addison asks nosily, peering over at Mark from her position on his couch.

"Yeah, a few times," Mark replies, taking a long pull off his beer.

"Don't you miss him?"

"He said the fishing is good there, said his cases are kind of boring, the Chief hates him, he's thinking about buying a boat," Mark informs her. She wants details. He's purposefully giving a high level overview so they can avoid discussing it further.

"We miss you," she reveals, peering at him glassy-eyed. And then thinks to correct, because there isn't a we anymore. She feels and thinks things, Derek feels and thinks other things. "I miss you," she relays instead, eyes threatening to topple her willpower.

"People change Red."

His smile is sorrowful. He doesn't recognize his friend anymore either, she can tell. He may have mentioned it a few weeks back when he got too drunk when they were all out and he threw up like a child all over the side of a cab.

"Sometimes I think he'd be happier free," she voices shakily, liquid courage in her addled brain, "that I should let him go."

He flicks on the TV, the Yankees are in spring training and he's missed his daily update.

She doesn't dare speak of it again.

 **...**

 **...**

 **A/N: Hi!**


	2. Then the Quiet Explosion

_**..**_

 _Then the Quiet Explosion_

 ** _.._**

 _A/N: I swear I wrote more in the last note than Hi! but it got eaten. Thanks for your patience and reviews, they certainly help. This story time jumps around a little but it shouldn't be terribly confusing. It's also a slow build which can be understandably frustrating. To the reviewer requesting that this not be Mark's baby, I can only say after nine hundred viewings of If/Then I cannot recall the affair being mentioned and this is for sure Derek's baby, whether or not he believes that though is something else entirely. To my fellow writers bringing back this revolution of Addek, thank you for the inspiration and the encouragement._

 _ **..**_

 ** _.._**

"It's a perfect place for children," the new realtor explains. "Three bedrooms upstairs, two on the floor above that, for guests or expanding," she smiles warmly nodding toward them.

"The backyard is nice," Derek concedes. The grass is green, and it is very well kept. The neighborhood is quiet, there's a park backing up the fence, only one other house on the block.

"Yeah," Addison sighs. She's made him wait for kids, and then he made her wait, and now it's just something they use against each other. Not exactly a probability, but there's still a chance. They are getting older.

She drones on about the restoration the house had, how they took the old bones of something great and added a sprinkle of modern touches turning it into a very special property. It's gorgeous, they get it.

"We'll take it," Addison interrupts her. Derek doesn't even look surprised, Derek doesn't even turn around to look at her from where he is surveying the lawn.

But it's anything to end the hunt that this has become over the last two weeks. She can't parade around town with her husband anymore, it's a waste of time, and this feels like something they'd pick. Close enough, anyway. They overpay according to Leslie, and Derek mutters something unintelligible that she can't catch while signing, probably about money, but she'd pay so much more to be done with this.

They close in a record twenty days, the cold keys falling into her hands, and all she can remember was how much more excited they were the first time they bought a home.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

She gives up on her French bakery. Trades it in for a Japanese one that's just about as good and she can walk to if she cuts through the other park a few blocks over. Derek isn't wild about her doing this, part of the trail is in a secluded wooded area, but she's not wild about Derek as of late so they're even. His protectiveness can't seem to extend to joining her anyway so she cares even less of his opinion.

She uses her one day off a week walking twenty minutes there, twenty back, hoping to get paged so they don't have to pretend to make plans that will involve one another. It usually happens like she wants.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

Her eyes dart around for a bathroom, but there are people everywhere. She can see the line for the elevator and her heart begins to race. This is going to be so embarrassing.

She's known for five weeks, hasn't found the right time to tell her husband. She's been up to her elbows in body cavities and too exhausted in the off chance she finds him at home to do anything other than collapse next to him.

She feels herself breathing irregularly when he shows up behind her, surprising her.

"You don't look good," he notices. And he should because she just told him she was going to be sick on the side of a tallest landmark in town and is now wildly trying to control that sensation through breathing techniques that aren't working.

She glares, gulps, and walks determined around the tourist attraction, only finding a trashcan.

He looks around as she empties her stomach ungracefully into the receptacle. "Sorry," he mumbles to the people who are starting to stare.

She feels him rubbing her shoulders, and she would tell him to stop but she's preoccupied at the moment.

"Gross." She hears the disgusted voice of a twenty-something as she finishes, a group of girls around her judging.

"I'm pregnant!" Addison yells back. "Don't have sex," she warns them, beginning a tirade about safe sex and contraceptives as Derek steers her back around the corner toward the elevator.

"What are you doing?"

He's seething, and she likes it, for a moment, until she realizes what it is that she's done.

A younger version of herself is replaying all the cute moments she had thought of to tell him he was going to be a father. A coffee cup, a scrub cap, a dinner somewhere with twinkling lights to share the moment with. He would've been so happy.

This seems oddly fitting for them now though.

"Congratulations." She closes her eyes, leaning against the wall as Derek tells someone to address the scene she just made.

In the crowded elevator later, the guide asking if anyone learned anything, Derek slides his hand into hers, holds tightly.

A signal, a sign. He's never going to leave now. No matter the misery. It washes over her, drowning her in the realization. The future is damp and dim.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

Making friends is a tall order when she is consumed with work and her failures. She settles on Arizona. She's nice, not afraid to tell it how it is and they usually see each other anyway which makes things like maintaining relationships infinitely easier. She is a little chipper though, and has an outlook on life that Addison can't relate to, but she figures that's what will make them great friends.

Which is how she arrived at an early morning yoga class with the perky blonde.

"It's amazing, right? I feel so invigorated when I'm done."

Addison, when she does find time for exercise, is more into a good lung burning run but this stretching isn't unpleasant. She used to go every now and then in New York, down the street from their old place. She thinks about taking up running again, Seattle certainly has enough space for it.

"It's good," Addison agrees after class, sweat beginning to dapple her neck. "We should go again."

"Definitely," Arizona agree easily and it makes Addison smile. Someone here does like her company. Maybe she'll have to inform Derek that she isn't as awful to be around as he seems to think.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

The bar is nice, plenty of space, the drinks don't take forever. The best part is that it isn't raining outside like where she came from. She looks around, and grins as one of her oldest friend's co-workers goes to grab her another ginger ale.

"I woke up one day and I couldn't do it anymore, it wasn't even a choice. I had a thought, next thing you know, I'm burning it all down. I left her, I don't know why. What kind of a person does that?"

"Hell if I know," Addison replies. She's had the impulse, more than a few times in the last five years. There's divorce papers squirreled away in a box in the garage to prove it.

Sam looks completely devastated with himself as she catches a glimpse of her friend, his ex, twirling away on what has now been made a dance floor.

She flew to L.A because she didn't know any doctors in Seattle that didn't work at the same hospital and couldn't find someone recommended enough to trust with this secret.

Sure Naomi threw a little bit of a fit at their lack of communication over the last three years, but she fixed it quickly, caught up on her friend's surprise divorce and shared her even more of a surprise pregnancy.

Naomi remembers them as the lovesick couple she left in New York years ago. Double dates, cram sessions, supporting each other through their internship. Addison can't blame her for romanticizing the relationship, she used to do it all the time. Everyone did. It was worthy of it. It was big gestures and conversations with just looks. It was never getting sick of each other and talking until the sun rose over their heads. Nauseating, if she remembers correctly, is what people used to say about them.

Now they're just perfect. Pinnacle of Seattle Grace.

During her quick three day trip, she got a full exam, some worries eased and Naomi promised to find her a local doctor so she wouldn't have to fly down every month, not that the visit wasn't nice. Sam and Naomi were both shocked Derek hadn't made the trip with her, which she brushed off by saying he was working on a case.

That had happened before. They'd had dinners with each others spouses, odd groups of three, when someone caught a surgery. It wasn't out of ordinary, or wouldn't have been, if she had told him she was leaving at all.

The passive aggressive side of her wanted to see if he would notice she was missing over the weekend.

Ever since the news of the baby a week ago, he's practically disappeared into thin air. She can't find him at work. He leaves voicemails saying he's staying at the trailer, planning.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

In New York, she tried a lot of things. She tried getting into his hobbies- baseball, camping (only once), even neuro journals so they'd have something to talk about. One time she joined his pick up basketball game, it did not end well. She figured after nine years they had just run out of conversation so she tried catching his eye. Low cut blouses barely appropriate for work, skirts that certainly weren't, his favorite lingerie, new lingerie, the highest damn heels she could buy. She could swear he used to be attracted to her, at the very least on a physical level.

They got new friends, ones they both liked. They joined the same gym, but never went together. She signed them up for cooking lessons, something new, he said he already knew how to cook all the things he wanted to. They bought a house in the Hamptons which she thought he would like because of all the summers he spent by the water but it turned out he hated, even more than seeing her unexpectedly there one weekend when they had a miscommunication.

Then she resorted to arguing. Stupid, petty, and inconsequential things. And the craziest thing was that it would work. He would tell her she was being ridiculous and fire back something logical and storm off. Later though, there would be a real connection, a spark of lust, of love when they made up. There was some emotion, recognition. She quickly grew tired though, ran out of things to complain about without seeming like she had become completely unhinged. Work became a great distraction, she found, taking a page out of his book. At least that paid off. Now she's one of the most sought after surgeons with specialties even she didn't dream of, and she's proud of that, but she may have unwittingly sacrificed something she used to treasure.

Eventually, possibly too quickly if she were candid, she gave up on all of it except work. Thought maybe they never really did have much in common other than science, scalpels, and god complexes.

And then he asked to move.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

"Why are they doing this?" Derek asks softly, his mouth dangerously close to her ear. "I thought you got rid of the family when you got rid of the wife."

He'd like that, she thinks, but keeps her mouth shut, swaying slowly with her husband, pressed tight against his chest, the feeling of his fingertips pressing into her spine almost too much.

They've only been at work for a week when Richard tells everyone during a staff meeting that they are throwing a prom for his ex-niece who is dying of cancer. Ellis rolls her eyes which Addison catches, but she seems to be going along with the charade. No one in the room looks impressed for that matter, but they all exhale in relief when Richard tells them that he put Meredith's interns in charge of everything.

Addison has made a point of trying to get to know everyone in the hospital for the last five days, but Derek, who is generally good with people, seems to be keeping it low key.

This is the first time anyone has seem them interact with one another outside of patients and controlled climates and she thinks he's overdoing it when he leans in for a kiss. She twists out of his arms and offers to grab them some punch, hoping it's been spiked already. There are a few residents that look capable of that job, two she's almost certain are miserable enough to do it.

He spends the evening attached to her, she spends it smiling and making small talk with peers. They seem envious if she is reading this right. And she's forgotten how good they are at filling in each others sentences, at making eye contact, at teasing. The last time she was at any sort of event with Derek in New York he was sullen, withdrawn, and willing his pager to go off.

She buys into it. The attention, the attraction.

They are good together, and that's easy to forget in the cavern of the mess they've made.

Derek is telling a story about his prom, about how he got stuck with Mark's date's friend, how they ditched them upon arrival and he was stuck with a girl whose name he can't remember to this day. People are laughing about how his car broke down on the way home, he looks damn good in his tux, and she doesn't feel invisible when he pulls her closer, protectively. Addison feels it shifting.

It's often difficult to reconcile the cheery, eager boy she fell for with the husband that stares at her blankly when she talks, the husband who can't be bothered to hear her anymore. It makes her heart ache far more than she'll admit to.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

"I thought you usually ate in your office," Derek says, flopping himself next to her.

"I do, but I overheard one of the nurses saying that Yang was gunning for Grey again, and I thought that might be worth it to witness, she's kind of terrifying. I want her."

Derek slides his pudding cup over to her, which she accepts readily, pulling the cucumbers off her salad with a fork and setting them on his napkin. "You're sinking to new lows," he commends, stealing a bite of her salad, wincing at the bitter greens she enjoys so much.

"I need some entertainment after my boring week," Addison explains. She has met everyone on her staff, completed budget forecasting, finished a draft on cystic fibrosis research that she's been working on for ages, and rearranged her office twice. There's only been three babies all week, none with any complications, and she consulted on one of Arizona's patients out of sheer boredom. Even when she had back to back surgeries for twelve hours on Thursday it still didn't feel the same.

"The pace is definitely different here," Derek tells her without looking over. He's been paged to the ER for MVCs and the odd hiking accident but there's no intensity like New York. He's the new guy in town, literally, and they aren't using him to his fullest capability. He finds it kind of insulting.

"You hate it," Addison grins knowingly at him, dipping her spoon into the creamy, cold texture in front of her.

"You do too," he smiles back, catching the eye of some of the residents a few tables over. "We'll get used to it."

"We could always go home. They like us there," Addison volunteers futilely, keeping her composure, measured as someone who is enjoying this sporadic lunch with her husband.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

This seems the most logical place for a nursery, across the hall from their bedroom. But she's standing in the empty room, a embracing beige color like the rest of the rooms, and it feels wrong. She paces from one end to another. It's not too big, not too small. The window lets in enough light. But she cannot envision what yellow would be in here, a white crib. She can't think about lilac and flowers or orange and trucks.

Derek missed their first doctor's appointment because she didn't tell him, the second because he chose to. Relayed something about having to take a laminectomy because Ellis was breathing down his neck about not generating revenue.

She finds a place in the middle of the floor, the soft carpet twisting under her toes. She likes the rooms on the third floor better, they're barren, waiting for guests. That's too impractical though. After a few minutes she hears the gate outside slam with her impending evening adventure of awkwardly silent dinners while she glares in his general direction for choosing something over her, over their family again.

The room is wrong, she is certain she can't decorate her way into thinking otherwise. The door slides easily into its latch, and she turns for the stairs.

"Derek-" she begins, evenly, angry.

"Addie, look who I found wandering around the hospital looking like they needed a meal." Derek expels before she can light off.

She makes it down the last step in time to see his leather jacket and the second he spins around she knows he can see right through her- the fear, the uncertainty, the self-doubt. He's always been able to do that. "Mark."

"Had to come see what all the fuss was about out here," he explains as Derek begins to drag him away with the promise of a cold beer and the game on the big screen downstairs in the only area of the house he seems to inhabit.

"Congratulations," he tells her later, when he comes up for a refill and to check on the status of the pizza she ordered.

She's curled into a ball, with a book, sitting on the outside of the evening. She's certain he can see the water gathering in her eyes, but makes no mention of it, instead bristles by with a bottle opener.

She wants to ask if he thinks it'll save them, if it will make any difference. Is it fair to put that all on a child? She's almost positive it isn't.

Instead she whispers thanks, and flips the page she stopped reading half an hour ago.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

"It's like he's had a lobotomy, I swear," Addison explains, offhandedly after a bad day. Now forced to sit with their therapist, a third visit, scheduled and forgotten until the tiny alarm sounded as she was scrubbing out. A nice warm bath and some Thai takeout were on her to do list and now she's stuck here.

"Let's elaborate Addison, and try not to accuse."

"He likes fishing-"

"I've always like fishing," Derek argues, shaking his head. He hasn't seen her in a few days, but then he glanced at his calendar this morning and figured he better not give her this too to hold over him in arguments.

"He wants to live in that trailer-"

"I've always like the forest."

"He's not shaving."

"Addison, come on! This is ridiculous, she's being ridiculous, right?" Derek looks to his male counterpart for help.

"Derek," the therapist sighs, "let her finish."

She clamps her mouth shut, teeth slamming into one another. He thinks she's insane because she can't explain it properly, like always. He used to let her mumble and veer off into other topics for chunks of time, patiently awaiting to hear what the problem was. She hears the encouragement to continue and fights the urge to babble until it comes out correctly.

"We used to do things together, in New York. All he wants to do here is fish and hike and buy boats."

"A boat, singular. You said it was fine."

"It is fine," she dismisses. "We used to go out, Derek. With people, with each other. We used to go to the theater, and galleries, and fundraisers, and grab drinks after work-"

"You can't drink," he lashes out.

"I know that!"

"Addison-"

"I'm not, I haven't," she assures him. There was an odd glass of wine here and there but nothing like she wanted. She has some self restraint after all. "We used to do things together, Derek."

"I never enjoyed those things Addison, now I live somewhere I don't have to pretend to."

It's biting and it stifles her, which she is positive was the desired effect no matter the level of truth. They sit in silence, save an odd sniffle from her side of the room as she battles surging hormones and the steady thump of Derek's fingers against the arm of the chair until their time is up. He bristles out the door, jacket trailing behind him and she's left apologizing.

Standard operating procedure for the men in her life.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_


	3. Together Alone

**_.._**

 _Together Alone_

 ** _.._**

 _A/N: Sorry this one took awhile. My favorite snippet is in this chapter, it's easy to catch. I hope you enjoy._

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

"Addison," Arizona chirps happily, "What are you up to tonight?"

She's never seen Arizona in a bad mood. A feat to be sure, but especially when working with delicate, sick children. She's seen her fight, her tenacity but she's still optimistic through the ordeals. Addison feels inspired around her. "I have the Wilhelm's operation tomorrow, I was going to study a little."

"You could do that in your sleep."

"Well, it's a little more complicated-"

"Come out with me, I have some people to introduce you to." She may have mentioned needing new friends a few too many times it would seem.

"I don't know, I really should-"

"You can bring Derek if you want, you guys can't seem to spend a minute apart."

"No, it's not that," Addison explains, charting, leaning heavily against the counter for support, it's been a trying day. "Nevermind, I'll be there. Where should we meet?"

"Meet me in the lobby at 7, ok?"

"Yes," Addison grins. Maybe Arizona can be infectious enough for both of them this evening. Derek slides up to the counter, pecks her on the cheek around five minutes later. Arizona is chatting about something on the other side of her and Derek greets her with more warmth here than he's managed to show her at home since they arrived in Seattle.

"You should come with us, I was telling Addison-"

"I'm on call tonight," Derek fake laments, pulling a pen out of his pocket and signing a few things in front of him. He wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her tightly, almost knocking her off balance, a specialty of his. "I'll see you tonight when you're done. Stay out of trouble," he grins, leaning in to kiss her again.

She can hear Arizona disgusted next to her who thinks they should be winning the hospital's Oscar award for most sickening couple.

They are good at acting, she'll concede that.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

The ER is a nightmare today, Seattle's skies have opened up an unforgiving storm. Hail pounds the ambulance bay as trauma after trauma is wheeled through the doors, the streets are slick and vehicle loads of patients can be heard mumbling about how they lost control and is the other party alive, and that they didn't mean to slide down that hill, the car just had a mind of its own.

Her patient is 27, nervous, brunette, and in her third trimester. The car she was riding in was struck on the driver's side and despite only complaining of neck pain, Addison has been goaded into checking her out personally, though heaven knows Kepner could use the practice. But who knows where Kepner is, she can rarely find her these days when she needs her. All hands on deck, Ellis said, as they got the call during their weekly staff meeting.

The intern she's been assigned for the day is a bumbling idiot who has already dropped a tray of instruments and forgotten to get their patient in for a CT. She'd sooner not have anyone by her side, not in the mood to teach anything let alone guide someone through the apparent struggles of common sense. He stumbles when she asks him questions and it takes everything in her not to reach across Olivia and choke him.

She hears mumbles about lightning touching down as another round of sirens sound from outside and turns to the sharp cry of commotion on the other side of the room. The head of trauma has managed to put his fist into a wall and is now cradling it protectively, no doubt broken. Torres will not be pleased, Addison murmurs to herself, drawing her patient's attention. She deflects.

"Alright Olivia, we're going to take you up for some testing now," she says stronger, in control as Owen is wheeled away from the destruction. She looks to the mop of dirty brown hair in front of her and gives strict instructions that she is certain are forgotten the second she looks away.

She clips Callie on the shoulder, or rather Callie runs into her and mumbles an apology as she heads towards trauma three. Addison goes to reply but then loses her voice again, something that seems to happen with increasing frequency in Seattle, and wanders to the desk to give the same orders to a more competent nurse than her intern is a doctor.

"Quite a storm out there," Addison tells her husband as he approaches. He grunts something indeterminable, no doubt displeased by the amount of work that has now fallen in his lap. "Am I inaudible today," Addison wonders aloud. "And invisible."

"I see you," she can make out, but he doesn't look thrilled to be laying eyes on her until Nurse Debbie returns to confirm she can keep an eye on Baxter and page her when he's done in case he forgets, because he'll forget.

"Heck of a storm out there." Derek turns to her in time to catch a raised eyebrow and the twitch of her always steady hand, certainly itching to slap him. "I don't think I'll be making it home tonight."

No great surprise there, Addison thinks, but doesn't say. Instead she smiles, placates him and tells him to be safe if he does decide to brave the roads. There's another night of refrigerator foraging, channel flipping and silence in her future.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

"Derek, Derek!" She's yelling and stomping down a hall after her husband, a look she's not very proud of but he will not even acknowledge the voice he should know so well behind him.

Suddenly he spins around in front of her and he's fuming, which she takes as a good sign because at least she can still make him mad. "I asked for your medical opinion Addison."

"And I gave it. If you didn't think you'd agree with my treatment plan then maybe you should have consulted me before steering me into that room!"

"That's my patient Addison, you don't get to hijack her recovery!"

"She is pregnant, the baby isn't developing, I have concerns," Addison shrugs, her voice lower than his, following him into a conference room before they draw the attention of co-workers and patients.

Derek shakes his head, looking toward the ground and she wonders what in the hell she must have done in the last four years to make him this disgusted with her, especially as a doctor. He's always enjoyed working with her, they make an excellent team, at least in an operating room. And typically he's sought her out and respected her opinion on cases.

She almost asks. Sometimes you aren't ready for the answer, she reasons, fiddling with her stethoscope.

"What is going on with you Derek?"

"Not now Addison."

His head is in his hands, something that has always worried her, so she pushes. "Derek, you can tell me, I can take it."

"I don't know," he replies solemnly, and she thinks it might be the first honest thing he's said since they moved out here.

"I'm serious, Derek. What is happening to you? This whole place- Seattle was your idea. We're supposed to be better here."

"I know that."

"Is this about our baby?" Her biggest fear is he leaves her with this child, alone, mothering something she has no business or understanding of how to soothe. But somehow, that also feels like the only solution to the problem of their marriage.

"We're not talking about that here."

 _That_ , like it's a temporary condition, something that will resolves itself if he just ignores it. She backs down easily to the fire in his eyes. "Fine. That's fine," she says, mulling it over. "Maybe tonight-"

"I'm going to be stuck here tonight, thanks to you."

And he strikes her ire. She is an excellent surgeon, one who he used to like to watch. "You know I'm right," she tells him, flipping back through the chart for anything she may have missed. Maybe he just doesn't want to admit it. "I'll stay," she concedes. "It's my consult, I'll stay and monitor her."

She hopes he tells her that she should be getting her rest, she should be home taking care of herself. Instead he nods and leaves wordlessly.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

After Derek's crippling blow in therapy, it was suggested (via an email after several rescheduled appointments) that they try and find a new hobby, or thing to do with one another. Which is how she wound up out here, wind causing her hair to twist around her neck in a knot, light jacket not quite thick enough for the bitter bite of an early morning by the river. She's got an old pair of his boots on, and his old fishing rod in her hand.

This isn't a new thing. Derek's been fishing his whole life, and Addison tried once to go along with him and Mark for a weekend but it ended with her throwing her vest into the lake in a huff of impatience. But it was the only thing he suggested after she gave about twenty options- anything from an art class, to strolling through their neighborhood in search of a good coffee house or simply reading.

Ellis gave them three days off together. Derek wanted to camp, but she in no uncertain terms told him if she didn't have running, hot water to calm her aching after a morning or afternoon of vomiting endlessly then she wasn't going to accompany him. So they hiked, at four in morning, stopping a few times to take in the foggy nature, and once for her to jump disgracefully into his arms after hearing what she was sure to be a cougar or bear.

The sunrise was absolutely stunning out here, she had to admit, crawling above the tree line in a vibrant rush of golden red, birds squeaking in the early morning. And he held her hand as they crossed a small creek on a log without her having to ask. He brought her a muffin that she couldn't stomach and carried anything remotely heavy. It was one of the best times she's had out here since the move.

But now he's upstream about twenty yards and by her count they haven't said anything to one another in over two hours. And she hasn't even gotten a bite on her line for the trouble. She did try and talk to him once but he said that noise would scare the fish so she gulped down her proposition about her next doctor's appointment and flying to New York for his niece's ballet recital in three weeks.

They take lunch under a large pine tree, the bark on the trunk digging into her back, sap assuredly in her hair already. Derek spread out a blanket he brought, shared a thermos of lukewarm tea. She wonders if she looks as lost, as desperate as she feels. Maybe that's what he finds so off-putting. "This is nice," she tries but he looks at her like he knows better about how she'd like to be spending the day.

"Yeah," he mumbles back anyway, flipping a page in his paperback. She wishes she had something to read, to do, instead she finds a stick and pokes hopelessly at the ground.

"Naomi and Sam said hello, I don't remember if I told you."

"You did."

"Oh. Sav is trying to convince Weiss to come out for a visit, probably next month."

"That'll be nice."

"Yeah."

He takes mercy on her after five more minutes of painful small talk and offers a book from the depths of the bag he packed at the trailer. One of his favorites, dog-eared, spine broken and well loved. She's never cared for Hemingway, personally, and certainly prefers two of his other works to this but takes the olive branch. She spends the afternoon re-reading the love story, glancing up at her husband who has fared much better catching what he thinks will be their dinner.

She feels a shiver creep onto her skin, and realizes she had dozed off against the tree, Derek now peering at her from above. "Ready?" She peels her tongue from the roof her mouth, suppresses a yawn and nods. He helps her up, legs shaky from lack of use and pulls a twig from her hair.

She is certain she must be beyond disheveled, but he is looking at her with something she hasn't recognized in a long while, a hint of warmth escapes him before he can stop it, his bare hands covering her hips but she doesn't feel like pushing it by wrapping her arms around his neck, instead waits for him to break away. He does, too quickly.

The spark is treasured and locked away in her memories by the time they make it back to the old Jeep he bought for excursions out in the woods. Later that night, with Derek tending to the fish outside on the deck, Addison finds herself with a glimmer of hope. She can endure that again, for the grin she gets when she catches his eye. He takes a sip of the beer in his hand as she prepares the salad safely tucked away from the heinous smell.

"Guess we will get some use out of that after all," Derek tells her, pointing out the window from his place at the table. She follows his finger to the play structure the old owners left behind that they had tried to get removed several times but kept getting called in to work. Originally all she could see were the potential broken bones and scraped knees of Derek's nieces and nephews but now she can almost hear the squeals of delight, the laughter that will encase their future.

"Yeah," she agrees, taking a mouthful of greens and a second glance outside. "Tell me about the patient you had with the nails in his head, Nurse Tyler said he was conscious."

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

She hears the tall woman mumbling at the end of the counter, studying a chart. For the briefest of seconds she thinks the woman is talking to her, but upon review is definitely speaking to herself.

"Sorry," the apology comes minutes later still, Addison now immersed in a conversation with the nurses about how Dr. Avery must be related to the famous Averys on the East coast, and no Addison never met any of them in New York.

"What?"

"Were you there? In the ER earlier. My husband-"

"Dr. Hunt," Addison fills in.

"Yes, I'm Dr. Torres-"

"We've met," Addison smiles. She knows because it was over a week ago, thought her approach on little David's poor heart was brilliant even if he wasn't strong enough for it.

"Did you see-"

"I was with a patient." Olivia, who made it through her rounds with Baxter and is safely tucked away in a room on the fourth floor.

"Right," Callie nods. "Of course."

Addison recognizes the ache of concern written all over her face. "Would you like to grab some lunch?"

"That'd be good. Cafeteria? I need to go check on my kids but I'll be there in ten."

"I'll see you there." Addison smiles to herself watching the disorganized shuffle of a woman who is losing a battle.

It's a little tenuous at first, the conversation, but Addison learns that Owen used to be a medic in Iraq, and has been refusing treatment for what Callie thinks might be PTSD. "I don't want to push too hard," Callie tells her.

"I can understand that."

"He's been doing so well, I don't know what set him off though. I wish I was there."

And there's split second where Addison almost shares, lost in thought, sipping her coffee. It would be so nice to have someone here who knew that she wasn't this immaculate half of a perfect relationship. She's called back to reality by Callie's request that they do this again, and she thinks better of bringing Derek up at all. Her new friend clearly has enough going on.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

"A house warming party, Addison seriously, what could we possibly need?" Derek groans, turning over the invitation in his hands. They've had their house for just over two weeks now and it looks completely furnished and usable to him.

"We don't need anything, Derek, that's not what it is about."

"Then I'm confused."

"It's polite."

"It's polite to make people bring you houseplants and come drink wine with other people they may or may not want to see out in the real world?"

"You don't get it," Addison shakes her head, and snatches the invitation back from her husband. She had to invite the Chief, it would be obvious if she didn't and no one thought Ellis would dare show up anyway. Richard, maybe for a minute, but then they'd be back to their little get together.

"Of course I don't get it, it doesn't make any sense," Derek replies, pouring his cereal into a bowl and turning back to the papers in front of him.

"We had one when we moved into the brownstone," she says quietly, propping a hand on her hip but it's hidden by the high counter.

"Because all we owned was your horrible futon couch, a toaster, and the coffee pot we stole from Naomi."

"That was a good coffee pot," Addison smiles at the memory. It got them through many long nights of studying, flashcards, and midterm cram sessions. It bore witness to the their ever growing love for one another and then met its untimely demise on the kitchen floor one morning when they got a little distracted and careless.

He doesn't look up, he isn't listening anymore.

The invitations get tossed into the trash on her way out the door.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

The bar across the street has not become a safe haven for her, for them. Most of the doctors can be found here on any given night so the show must continue. Sometimes when she needs to be depressed and drink she heads downtown, gets lost in a sea of younger people and is generally ignored.

Arizona has introduced her to everyone in the place it feels like, now they're playing darts off in the corner while she volunteered to get refills because sports, even the least demanding ones, have never been her strong suit. The interns are a giggling mess on the other side of the room and Yang is sitting alone, strongly, at the bar nursing her drink and glaring at everyone around her.

There wasn't really anyone in the group Addison felt compelled to continue a conversation with. They were all nice, but upon reflection, this probably was not what she wanted. She didn't need more people she couldn't be herself with, people she had to work hard with. She's partially paying attention to the bartender, but mostly daydreaming an exit strategy when she hears it.

"Fancy seeing you here," the familiar voice says behind her and she spins around surprised.

"Archer!"

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

 _A/N:_ For anyone who didn't take the daunting trip to _Private Practice_ with Addison, Archer is her brother. And he hates Derek. Which is the best.


	4. From Silence Into Silence

_**..**_

 _From Silence Into Silence_

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

She is in the passenger seat, spinning her rings nervously, a habit she knows drives her husband crazy. But she can't help it. They're late. Well, they're not late yet, but they will be in fourteen minutes and traffic downtown is at an absolute crawl like usual.

She's trying to breathe through it.

"You're going to flip out, just...save it," Derek reminds her, pinching the bridge of his nose.

She knows he hates driving in this sort of bumper to bumper grind. He always has, but he's better at it than she is, and she knows that too.

Inhale, exhale.

Someone manages to find three inches in front of them to cut into and Derek slams his hands onto the horn, the car beginning to be dusted with wetness. It's never a matter of if it will rain here. It's when, and how much. The umbrella drew too much attention to her foreigner status so she ditched it after the first week, but she misses it. The water that is constantly splashing up the back of her calves and drizzling down her neck is not something she is accustomed to yet.

After they get caught at the same light for a fourth time, she suggests parking here and walking the rest of the way. It'd probably be faster, but he seems hellbent on making it where they need to be and she pulls her phone out to let the receptionist know they're behind. Though honestly, if anyone made it to anything on time in this town it'd be a miracle.

"You're huffing and puffing over there like you're having the baby now."

"It's just..."

Derek resigns, she sees it in his eyes, the sudden slouch of his shoulders.

"She hasn't met you yet, Dr. Adams. I believe she thinks I made you up, like a crazy person."

"Why- nevermind," he decides immediately. "I'm here now aren't I?"

"Can we-"

"Can we what Addison?"

"Do you want to know the sex of the baby?"

"You don't know already?"

He's eyeing her skeptically. Like she'd keep that from him, but then, nothing about this has been conventional or pleasant really. "We couldn't tell last time, he or she was being a little shy and it was still early and I didn't know if you wanted to know so we stopped trying pretty quick. Do you want to know?"

He takes literal minutes to answer, concentrating on the road in front of him, the green car that just started to move. "Whatever you want to do is fine."

"I don't want fine, Derek," she almost explodes. "Can we at least act like we've been married for more than ten days and figure out an answer to this simple question together?"

"I don't care Addison, whatever you want."

"Great," she sighs, unbuckles and hops out onto the street. She hates surprises, she knows he knows this. It was hard enough to wait three weeks to an appointment he could actually to make it to. When she looks back with a glare he's rolling down the window in protest to her antics. "I'll see you there, if you make it." She waves him off and begins walking.

Maybe she is going crazy.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

"So where have you been?" Addison asks excitedly, hunting through the wine collection in the dining room for what she knows her brother will love. Nothing less than the best, especially after the paltry offerings at the bar they came from.

"Zihuatanejo," Archer says happily. "Swam with some dolphins, did a few press junkets at the resorts. Great place, you should go."

"Found it!" She announces.

"Where's Derek?" Archer asks earnestly. He looks to the one glass on the table and back to his sister. "On call?"

"Always, it feels like. And Derek is still tied up at work, he'll be home later. Tell me more about your book tour."

Derek didn't actually take her call. Sent it to voicemail, and now that he has a trailer to hide out in, she doesn't expect that he will be making an appearance this evening. They make small talk for ten minutes and she gives him the grand tour before she senses Archer is growing impatient.

"Cut the crap," Archer demands as they find their way back downstairs. "What are you doing in this hell hole?"

"The hospital-"

"You could've gone anywhere Addison, with your resume. Anywhere. Instead you fell off the face of the earth."

"I didn't realize this was an inspection."

"Well, she's not going to come out here herself," Archer relays, but it should seem obvious that Bizzy isn't planning on dropping one precious heel onto this sodden ground. "And it's always an inspection. The house is nice, she'd like the flowers out back," he gives it a cursory glance from his planted position in the sitting room.

"Addie! Home!" Derek yells, keys falling onto the hook, back door slamming. He obviously didn't listen to her message, and part of her is not-so secretly pleased by the scene that he is about to encounter.

"Oh good, I can ask him," Archer smiles already out of his seat and on his way to ruining someone's evening. "Derek."

"Archer," Derek speaks softly.

"Come join us, Addie was just about to tell me how you convinced her to move away from her life, friends, and family for seemingly nothing but rain in return. Maybe you can enlighten me further."

"I need a drink," Derek warns, Addison quick to her feet.

"Why is he here," Derek hisses into her ear, creeping up behind her seconds later, warm palm flattening against the center of her back as she pours him a scotch.

"No idea."

"How long is he planning on staying?"

"I'm staying until I can figure out why Seattle is so appealing!" Archer yells down the hall, grins, and flops himself back into his seat, more at home than Addison has felt in her months of living here.

"Because it was as far as I could get from you," Derek mumbles, downs his drink and holds the glass out for another.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

Derek's in the kitchen, reading, haphazardly eating cereal, drops of almond milk dotting the counter where he's sitting. He has a surgery in a few hours, one that he willingly would've passed off, but aside on waiting for something to come in, he doesn't have a lot else going on. In New York, he was sought after. He had a network of referrals that kept him busy. In Seattle, he hasn't made any connections. He's talented still, but there's no one else saying that save himself. It's frustrating, a dagger to what his wife considers his fragile ego.

"Where's Addison?" Archer asks, sauntering into the room, pressed and polished. Derek could swear he didn't sleep here last night, but he left them early into their evening of reminiscing, saying that he needed sleep when what he needed was to not spend the night listening to them lament their privileged and largely unsupervised upbringing.

"She got called in." He doesn't know this to be true. But she's not home. So she must be at work. She didn't wake him when she left. Something she used to do in their early years. A quick kiss to his prickly cheek, a mumble into his ear of where she was going and when she'd be back or at least that he'd see her later.

They're silent while Archer finds himself a cup of coffee. They don't like one another and without Addison they don't have to pretend to get along or have anything in common, even though there's quite a bit of overlap. Much to Derek's chagrin. Archer always said he didn't belong with Addison, that he should be so lucky, and Derek's own family agreed. But they have things in common despite very different childhoods.

"What are you doing here?" Derek asks, setting down his research.

"Ah, the eternal question. What are we doing here?"

"You know what I meant."

"You kidnapped my sister," Archer reminds him.

Derek shakes his head in response. It's not like they saw her frequently, hell Addison and the Captain haven't spoken in literal years, and she's always so wound up around her parents. It's actually nice that no one is going to expect them for weekends in the Hamptons this year, and that they won't cross paths on any of the fundraising circuits. It took her a week to calm down when Bizzy said she looked well. Which was later explained to be a bad thing, even though to this day it sounds like polite small talk to Derek.

"I miss-"

And suddenly Archer is in a heap on the floor, coffee beginning to seep into the hardwood as he convulses, cup scattered into pieces. It takes Derek a second too long to catch on but then he's restraining his head, groping desperately at the counter for his cell phone, liquid scorching his knees.

He's seen his share of seizures in his job, even caused some just so he could map them. But it doesn't happen in his own home, on a random Tuesday, half a grapefruit next to the sink intended for the person on the ground.

"I need an ambulance," he all but screams into his phone, forgetting that he knows how to do this for the briefest of seconds before muscle memory and reflexes finally dare to step in and fill the cavernous void of immediate fear.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

Their house is technically closer to Seattle Presbyterian so that's where the ambulance drops them off, Derek pounding on Archer's still unconscious body and yelling directions as the doors are flung open in the bay. He doesn't have time to take in the smaller space, the different colors or the flurry of doctors that are trying to pull him off his brother-in-law. Finally, when he's sedated, brain still seizing violently, Derek makes proper introductions. Gets permissions to work in the hospital, carefully forgets to mention they are technically related.

Addison isn't listed as Archer's next of kin or emergency contact, which Derek finds surprising and suspicious considering the midnight call they had five years ago when Archer's car service had a run in with a lamp post. He's tasked with calling the Montgomerys, but they are out of the country and it takes a while for them to call him back. His father-in-law wants detail, mother-in-law wants action, but neither one of them can be bothered to book a flight back from Italy and say to call again when he knows more. Knows _something_ is actually what Bizzy says.

Derek finds the CT disturbing and puzzling. Several lesions in the third ventricle, and this can't have been a shock to Archer. He would have been experiencing symptoms for months. Which would explain his presence here in Seattle. And the medication that popped up on the blood work results.

He's dying.

And by the time Derek gets the other scans from New York it looks like it's going to happen sooner rather than later. He decides to call in sick to work, texts Addison and tells her he is in quarantine at the trailer so he doesn't spread any germs and heads to the cafeteria for some coffee and to wrack his brain for a plan.

He can't go to Addison without something figured out. She'll eat him alive.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

Derek looks like he's four seconds from a meltdown when he enters the waiting room, but he measures his breath as he takes the seat next to her, and peers down at the magazine she isn't actually reading. Celebrity babies don't really interest her, not enough anyway to pull her attention away from her husband's clenched jaw and dry hands that are rubbing at his slacks.

Waiting rooms are particularly difficult. It increases her anxiety, watching all these women, in various stages of their pregnancy looking so thrilled, some with other children present. They're doting and warm, doling out toys from magical bags, speaking calm, hushed words that seem to quiet even the craziest children she's seen. They're so intrinsically linked, these mothers and their children, in lockstep.

She doesn't know if she can do that. If she'll be able to anticipate emotions enough to quell imposing tantrums and comfort fussy toddlers. She can do sick babies. Monitor them, will them to continue living through sheer determination and a heady combination of drugs and interventions. She can operate on them when they haven't even made it out into the cold, harsh world. But her own child, seemingly perfectly healthy so far, she's not so sure. Sometimes, she thinks it might be best if the baby somehow wound up in the NICU because at least then she'd be useful at some point in its life.

Derek's always wanted kids. Derek's going to be a great father, she can't argue that. As long as he remembers to come home every once in a while. She's seen him with his nieces and nephews, giving out horsey rides, tickling them while they scream with delight, meticulously building endless Lego sets and train tracks, grinning when his hard work pays off. He'll put band-aids on stuffed animals and make funny voices when he reads bedtime stories, he'll wake up at two in the morning for nightmares and watch ridiculous animated movies. And it will be effortless, as so many things are for him.

He can't comprehend how hard some people have to work at life. He's never out of his element.

He used to tell her she'd be a good mother, that she was good with all of the children she's met, but ninety-seven percent of those kids have been very ill. They agreed on two, preferably a boy and girl. But she knew he wanted more after growing up in a packed house, so in her head she conceded to three and never told him. He has to know she's terrified, he has to know that even if she's working off the best example of her favorite nanny from when she was a child, she's internally five steps away from finding a landmine and exploding.

"Addison."

She turns when he says her name, pulling her out of her reverie. She looks up and sees an exasperated nurse, who has likely been trying to get her attention for some time now. "Sorry," she mumbles to no one in particular and follows them back to the hallway.

Giving the room one last passing glance, melancholy sets in. Maybe one of them, just one, thinks she fits into this role. Maybe they think she's one of them. They're all busy though. On their phones, occupying prying hands, catching up on the latest gossip laid out on shiny pages.

Next time, maybe.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

"Dr. Shepherd," a young man squeaks in front of him. "You-your patient."

"Yes," Derek sighs, irritated. This puzzle cannot be solved. He's called everyone he knows on the East coast, sent the scans over. Everyone is saying it is impossible. He could and will likely kill Archer if he operates, or worse, leave him a shell of what he was beforehand. And if he doesn't operate, there's no telling. He may never come out of this, let alone leave the hospital.

"You said to run everything-"

"Yes," Derek cuts him off.

"Neurocysticercosis sir."

"Parasites?"

"Yes, the MRI confirmed- sir!"

Derek's already snatched the labs back out the resident's hands, and is rushing off in the direction of Archer's room a mere fifty feet away.

"You really go all out, don't you," Derek's mumbling at the body in front of him. Wires run everywhere, a machine is breathing for him, his brain is still continuously seizing causing an unknown amount of damage. "Let's push propofol," he says, pointing at a nurse.

"What about the pressure, his heart-"

"It will stop the seizing, it will give us time," he interrupts the resident again. He really needs a new human on this case. He ponders the possibilities of having Archer transferred to Seattle Grace. Certainly, Derek would be more comfortable there. He knows his team, can find places without a map. Ellis would love the publicity.

But there's only going to be publicity if he can save him. And despite the fact that the lesions have changed from tumors to parasitic cysts, it doesn't change where they are located and how many of them there are. In fact, it might make things more complicated. He realizes he's talking out loud at the same time the machine in front of him indicates Archer's brain is finally resting.

Derek exhales without relief and reaches for the phone in his pocket. It's time to come clean. He asks her over on a consultative basis. He doesn't explain why he's here and not at home resting, ill. He doesn't tell her if he's seen Archer when she asks because she's been trying to reach him.

"Not now Addison, I don't have time for that right now," he laments when she asks another question that he can't focus on. "Look, can you just push your three o'clock and come over here or not?"

She agrees easily. To almost anything he asks of her these days, which is very little. He's trying to leave her as unscathed as possible while he figures out things. He came to Seattle to think, but it's provided precious little clarity on his marital strife and caused enormously painful professional issues.

This might save him, this case, from a medical standpoint. But it might deteriorate his marriage past the point of reconciliation.

Best case, he saves Archer's pathetic excuse for a life and his wife is overjoyed. Worst case, he loses even more credibility and Addison, who can generally separate work and home, will deny him any validation of a good attempt and leave him altogether.

Not exactly the odds he likes to face.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

"Derek," Addison breathes, meeting him at the entrance of the strange hospital. "This better be important."

"This way," he urges, a hand landing on her lower back. She waves her credentials at the front desk staff but no one is paying any attention. They've all been huddled together talking about some new case that came in this morning. "Do you at least have the chart. Who am I talking to here?"

"Just come with me," he rasps.

He's still quiet, face a mask, in the elevator. Derek's always been better than her about not getting attached to patients, but the children, he's always struggled through. She used to find it endearing, that he let her see how much it affected him, he would seek her out for comfort after particularly difficult cases. Her, not Mark. Not activities like drinking oneself into a hole, or drowning in television. But he hasn't come to her in years. It's worrying.

"Derek, what's wrong?"

The ding of their arrival breaks his ability to respond. He didn't look like he wanted to answer her anyway.

He turns sharply, suddenly, facing her. The door behind him is closed and she still doesn't know what she's consulting on.

"I need to know what we are doing here before we go in there Derek, I like to evaluate before I speak to the patient's parents. You know that."

He doesn't reply, ignores her almost, cracking the door. He's hard to read.

Then he's guiding her forward, and she's annoyed that he's going to rope her into something yet again that will be difficult and make her look incompetent, but then Archer is there. In a place he doesn't belong, looking terribly pale and still.

Death like.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

There's a nervous stutter of a breath that he doesn't miss, even though monitors are beeping rhythmically, and there's a whoosh of silence that envelops the nurses that are inside.

Drawn in and almost choked on before it's exhaled.

And she's looking at him, to him.

She clears her throat, gains the composure she lost, checks that the witnesses are none the wiser.

She's always so damn stubborn.

A normal response would warrant some duress, some panic, but not from his wife. She spins back around, her height even with his in the heels she has on, and asks for his chart. She reads it silently, looks at the scans he left carelessly hanging. He doesn't try to interrupt her thought process, there's no point.

A gulp, stifled, and she almost breaks again. Maybe he underestimated her earlier. "What's the plan? What are we doing?"

Imploring, those damn eyes, the strong set of her jaw. The staff busies themselves with leaving the room, privacy, she would appreciate that.

Derek finds himself checking to make sure his shoes are tied before trying to explain, patiently and understandingly that he does not have a plan because no one, including himself thinks that there is anything that can be done. He can reverse the drip, but if Archer starts seizing again it's as good as over. He could slice into his brain but he'd likely rupture one if not all of the sacks trying to remove them and kill Archer. He could start administering antiparasitics with steroids and hope for the best but that could take days. Days that Archer doesn't have.

Derek wishes, not for the first time in his life, that Archer wasn't here.

"ETV-" he hears her in the midst of a mumbling, half coherent tirade on the things he could be trying. But she's out of her depth here. And they both know it.

"I don't know if I can get a shunt in there without rupturing the cysts."

"Derek, you have to do something."

He thinks for a second that she may allow some comforting, he can see the beginnings of tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, but she makes a dash across the room and grabs Archer's hand instead, leaning in close and whispering something he isn't supposed to hear.

Promises they aren't going to be able to keep.

She has her head buried in Archer's side, trying in vain now, to keep it all together. He should be five feet further into the room. He should be consoling her. He should be figuring out how to save a man's life. But he's glued to the floor.

A statue. And the for the longest moment he thinks she has forgotten he's here at all. She dabs at her face with her sleeve, ashamed, because that's how they trained her.

"Thank you for bringing him here, instead."

An odd sentiment. A compliment. On something he didn't even purposefully do, something that was decided for him.

Public forums have never been either of their things. They don't need a stage for this catastrophe. It's been difficult enough to keep up appearances at Seattle Grace.

"Addie, let's go find a room and talk," he decides, grabbing the chart back off the edge of the bed where she left it when she was done.

"I'm good here," she demands.

"Fine."

"You can do this Derek," she tells him, standing, straightening her skirt. "You can help him. I know you can. We worked so hard for so long, this, this is what it's for."

He's dealt with parasites before, a few times. Not as advanced as Archer's case is presenting, not as complicated.

What he wants to say is no. What he wants to tell her is that every single doctor he has talked to in the last few hours has called him crazy for even wanting to try. She doesn't want to hear it though, she is back to clutching her brother's hand and looking at him expectantly.

He shuffles out of the room wordless through the white noise of his wife begging behind him.

She wants a miracle.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

 _ **A/N: So Archer's here, but we are borrowing from that fun crossover storyline, and he may not be around for long. And a little bit of Derek's perspective this time, not that it excuses anyone's behavior. I am not a doctor, but the google machine is very insightful. All titles belong to Hammock, which is a nice listen if ever you have the time. Let me know what you think.**_


	5. Hope Becomes a Loss

_**..**_

 _Hope Becomes a Loss_

 _ **..**_

 _A/N: I'm so sorry this took forever. I had a real internal battle about Archer. Forgive me?_

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

She's hormonal. Hormonal and bridging over to desperate when she begins to beg her husband for something he really doesn't want to do. And she can tell, by the twitch of his fingers, the sighs he keeps from masking, he does not want to be involved with this, notoriety be damned. She tracked him down to one of the hospital's nurse's stations. His hair looks like he's been running fingers through it ceaselessly, eyes bloodshot, face worried. She at least had the foresight to shut the door before the pleading began again.

No one knows them here though. They know of them, and certainly word of the parasites is getting around like a wildfire. But no one knows them and that anonymity gives her the strength to ask for the impossible.

"Derek," she begins and he's glued to the scans he probably has mesmerized. "You owe me," she seethes and that grabs his attention. Not in the best way though because he looks a little angry and confused. "I moved all the way out here, risked career suicide so that you could find...I don't even know- what are we doing here, Derek? You're miserable. I'm miserable."

"Addison, I could kill him."

"So make a plan, evaluate, take a risk. You aren't doing anything!"

"This isn't just a risk."

"We are surgeons, we can fix this. This is what we do."

"This isn't just another patient, Addison!" he roars, and she's taken aback but happy that she finally has his full attention. The implications of it being her family are not lost on her.

She takes a minute, a beat. "What if it was," she begins calmly. "What would you do if this wasn't Archer, walk me through it."

She takes a seat as he sighs, shoving the MRI results to her side. They were always a good team in the hospital. "You can do this Derek, you can be the hero. I know you can."

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

She's read through a plethora of books at this point. Books on names, books on the first year of life, books on pregnancy since she's seeing it from a different perspective now, and books on parenting that she won't need for years. But she's nervous, or perhaps apprehensive. Logically, there are a million things she should be buying, and yet she has no interest in shopping for them. Often she ponders adorable knitted hats, tiny socks, and pacifiers. But each and every time she browses online or steps into a store she leaves with nothing.

There's a wall she can't climb. An obstacle, unseen and unyielding.

Books she can buy. Books she can read. The evidence is stacked in the office, taking up most of the back wall, little sticky notes in varying shades poking out of pages she finds interesting or thought she might need again.

She tries to reason if it is because she's scared they won't make it to the finish line, that this won't be real. Or if it is because Derek is so detached from the process that he is rubbing off on her. Or, worst of all, that this isn't what she actually wants. Because she could swear that she used to. She always wanted to be a mother.

Maybe under more ideal circumstances, her marriage not hanging on by threads, surrounded by friends who can help, she be more inclined. Leaning back in her chair, she drifts to the window on the right, on Derek's side of the cramped space. He doesn't use his office at home very often, but all of his texts are here, she can almost picture him, years younger, nose to the pages asking her about Chinese food as he tries to figure out his latest innovative approach.

The Shepherd Method. He's always wanted something named after him. She used to tease him that she'd beat him to it, spoiling his victory and stealing his name. And now, when he's about to have a human with his name in four short months, he couldn't be less interested.

The book in front of her draws her attention once more and she wanders aimlessly through a winding list of names that start with 'E'.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

"This isn't operable, Addison," Derek grimaces, looking at the scans that he is certain will haunt him in his dreams. Little cysts dancing through fields, bursting, the picture fading to black as he gasps for hair and stumbles back to reality.

"We could try a course of drugs."

"That could take up to ten days to work."

"And he doesn't have ten days," his wife tells him softly, the moment finally dawning over her.

"I'm so sorry Addie." He aches to hold her when her tears finally fall in his presence, longs to grab a hand, stroke her hair, rub her back. Anything that could be construed as comforting and supportive.

When he finally does reach for her, mascara starting to run pitifully down her reddened cheeks, she bats his hand away. Like a bug that was annoying her. Swats his attempt to step up, causing him to shirk back into the swiveling chair, lopsided.

"He's going to die," she tells no one in particular. Says it over and over and over until the sound of her breaking reverberates off the walls and he wonders if he's ever going to be able to forget the sound.

She takes a pause as Derek checks his pen again, making sure it still works. "He's going to die-"

"Addison," Derek interrupts, noting that if he hears the phrase one more time he's liable to not only up and leave the room but also maybe the hospital altogether.

"No," and she's louder than him, as she so often is. "No. He's going to die, Derek."

"If we would have gotten to it sooner, maybe-"

"He's going to die anyway," she clarifies. "If you cut, if you don't cut. Dead."

And suddenly she seems very detached from the moment. Something he watched her painstakingly teach herself throughout her internship. She's weighing the outcomes for him, doing the work. The switch has been flipped, full on doctor mode. Patients die all the time, that's what she told him their second year after a particularly brutal case. He didn't believe her then, and he doesn't now either.

"You don't want to be the one to kill him," she accuses, making eye contact.

"He's your brother."

"You're scared," she assesses and grabs the scan back, scooting herself closer to him. "You have to cut, it doesn't matter, he's going to die for sure if we do nothing."

"I told you, I can't get the scope in there, there's no room."

"Let them burst-"

"Dr. Shepherd!" The door swings open, the frazzled resident from earlier looking worse for the wear.

Derek's feet carry him back to Archer's room and he's barking orders, the noise foreign to him as it rushes from his mouth, leaving his wife in the doorway as a spectator, until the commotion dies down. She doesn't even register as they try and figure out why Archer is suddenly hypotensive, debating which drugs to push, and finally which ones to stop.

There's no more than a split second of someone yelling out V-fib before his fist connects with Archer's sternum, shocking him into consciousness and a normal heart rhythm. He catches her glare though, as Archer sputters back to life in front of them. Her glare says he could have injured him more than he already was, the glare says he should stop doing procedures he isn't fully trained on, especially when Cardio is on their way. But he'll be damned if the full force of his fist on Archer's chest wasn't at least a little gratifying.

Plus, people look impressed now. And that helps.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

"Well that's just par for the course, isn't it?" Archer sneers, glaring at Derek who has found a suitably safe distance from the bed.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Addison urges, not that it will do anyone any good.

"I'm going to die," Archer says like a jackass, causing Addison to tremble and gasp for a puff of air again. Her grasp on his hand is white-knuckled and painful looking. Archer never thinks of anyone but himself, Derek is certain of that, after fifteen years of knowing him.

"Archie, Derek can do this."

"No one can do this," he refutes, but still looks up for assurance, which is not something Derek's going to give out.

And he knows in an instant, a split second, that no matter what he's cutting into Archer's brain at some point today. The way Addison looks up at him, hopeful, almost. She hasn't needed a thing from him in so many years, but this, she can't do on her own. Though, god help him, she will try if he doesn't agree.

"I can do this," Derek tells him.

"Oh great, now you've got him going," Archer moans, "What's the plan then?"

"Let them burst," Derek begins tentatively. Archer's eyes narrow and he explains further that he's positive he can control the situation and remove the cysts.

"You'd have to be precise-"

"I will be," Derek interrupts, more confident now, Addison looking at him appreciatively. He looks to a nurse and asks for an OR and to get the patient prepped amid Archer's complaints of not consenting.

The only person Archer cares about is himself. But sometimes his baby sister gets thrown a bone and by the time Derek is snapping the file shut and excusing himself to get ready, Archer has calmed considerably and he has agreed, or at least stopped fighting the one person in the room who has more tenacity than both of them combined.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

The OR is colder than he prefers it, his hands feel a little stiff and his feet hurt in anticipation of the long afternoon ahead. His pointer finger on his left hands tries to twitch but he stops it from even thinking about moving. This room is foreign and uncomfortable. God only knows why Addison was allowed into the gallery, but she's leaning against the glass, watching him intently, surrounded by masses of strangers.

All there to share the misery.

He's a talented surgeon. He's able to make snap decisions that almost always pay off. He can think outside the box, he's calm under pressure. He used to be lauded for his work, held in high esteem. But that was before this.

This is insurmountable. An unforeseen request.

As his mouth goes dry he wishes for Seattle Grace and Ellis Grey who never in a million years would let him operate on his brother-in-law. The whirring of machinery, the beeping of monitors all fade into the background and before he's ready the first sac has been removed from Archer's brain, hands orchestrating of their own free will.

One down, Derek tells himself.

He's still alive.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

Addison has her forehead pressed to the cooling glass of the ailing old Jeep that jars her tender insides. Derek says it just needs new spark plugs. Addison thinks that it needs to be driven to the landfill. He woke her before the sun, on their only day off together in weeks, and told her to dress warm and to meet him downstairs in twenty minutes.

As they head outside the city she finds herself tensing. It's another one of Derek's adventures in nature. And they're getting old. There was the fishing, the sunset hike, the full day spent hunting a pair of waterfalls they never found.

She sighs for probably the fiftieth time, warm air and moisture gathering on the window, but he takes no notice. Or at least pretends not to.

They spend a wordless hour in the car, him sucking down coffee, her trying, in vain, to catch some more sleep before what will surely be some sort of endurance challenge.

When they arrive in the parking lot at the end of the road there are a few cars already littering the sides and she can't imagine what ungodly hour they must have gotten up here as the clock is barely ticking past six in the morning. Didn't Derek like to sleep in, old Derek did, she could almost swear.

The sun is attempting to break through the fog, heat the soggy ground, but is losing the battle. "Are we hiking again?" she finally speaks, he's throwing water bottles into an old backpack.

"We moved to a beautiful state, we need to get out an explore it."

"I can explore from our bed thanks to the internet."

"Not the same," he grumbles, and tosses the bag over his shoulder starting down a road without her.

Part of her is tempted to slink back into the car and sleep while he assuredly climbs something she'll regret following him on but she joins anyway. It gains traction quickly, steep and winding over tiny creeks and through endless wildflowers. It's admittedly beautiful, if not a little more brutal than how she wanted to spend her morning off. She had a particular croissant in mind that she'd been craving, and a crossword she saved, and that documentary on animal abuse in Japan that every one keeps telling her she needs to see.

He's ten feet in front of her, has been the whole way, and hasn't really checked to see that she is keeping his pace. She stops to tie her hiking boot, the ones she finally gave in and ordered after the second time his old ones gave her blisters that hurt for a week. He comes barking back down the trail about her needing to stay with him so she doesn't get lost. Which seems unlikely, given all the markers, and irks her in the early morning light.

"Go ahead," she tells him, pointing to the foggy trail ahead.

"Addison." He's already pinching his nose, like a tirade is coming.

"No, go ahead. You have zero regard for what I wanted to do today, so go ahead. I'll catch up, or I won't and it really doesn't matter. Let's not pretend we are out here to be together."

"Did you bring the first aid kit like I asked?"

She creases her brows and stares straight at him. He might be going crazy. "You know I did," she tells him, swatting at the bag on her back.

"Let's go," he urges, placing himself behind her this time.

Forty minutes later the trees give way to a clearing of rocks. Boulders spread across the earth like they rained down from the sky and it stops Addison dead in her tracks. "I'm pregnant. You realize this right? I'm nauseous sixty percent of the day, I have to pee every ten seconds, and my feet ache when I do absolutely nothing."

"It's fairly obvious," he says gesturing to somewhere in her midsection, the tiny baby bump covered by a puffy navy vest.

"And yet traversing a field of rocks seemed like a great idea to you, something I would enjoy."

"We're almost there," Derek replies, looking hopefully to the top of the pile.

Despite the head shaking and eye rolling, Addison manages to stumble and carefully pick her way through the landmines designed to ruin her toes. Derek surprises her by actually attempting to make sure she doesn't land face first and she finds a final surge of surprising power and lands at the peak she assumes they came for.

The view is ruined by low clouds, but she can tell that the hike is supposed to be worth the pain of seeing what's up here. She can feel Derek yanking on the zipper on her back, rooting around through the snacks and water for something. "Where is it," he mumbles, dragging her toward the ground as he digs.

"Outside pocket," she says, turning toward him and unclasping the straps running across her chest. She inspects him for injuries and comes up with nothing. He snatches it out of her hands as soon as she reaches it.

She's still confused as he makes his way through the small group of people to a white mailbox perched on top of a some sort of testament to its presence. The door on the front is hanging open, everyone seems to have signed their name somewhere, stickers upon stickers crowd the surface, and Derek jams the first aid kit into the box, pulling out a small orange. She's still puzzled when he grabs the sharpie sitting under the box and starts writing D & A on the rock that's holding everything upright.

She grabs the marker when he's done and adds + 1 to where he's inscribed their first initials. It earns her a sheepish smile and he steals the orange back and begins to peel it. He offers her a piece which she refuses because lord knows where it came from and they briskly make their way back to the car in under an hour and a half.

She does fall asleep against the rattling window, Derek wakes her when they pull into the driveway, and somehow along the way he found her a bagel and decaf coffee to go with her crossword and the research on strollers she's been putting off.

He leaves her with a prickly kiss to the cheek, says he should be home for dinner, and is already down the street by the time Addison gets the gate unlatched and her wobbly frame pointed toward the house.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

"Come on Derek," Addison huffs to herself, looking at the code clock tick past the minute marker.

The second sack in a row burst, uncontrolled, leaving Derek scrambling to fix the mistake as Archer tries to leave this world.

"Come on, come on, come on."

The residents and interns and press and whoever the hell else she is sharing this gallery with are all looking at her with a mixture of pity and fascination. And she does not approve.

She sees the crash cart eek ever closer to the table, her husband determinedly waiving it away.

She exhales loudly, allows her fingernails to stop digging into her own flesh and finds a seat as the beeping below subsides. He offered to demand that the gallery be closed, but it was too good of a learning opportunity for the hospital so they gave up that fight pretty quick.

She looks at the people sharing one of the worst days of her life. They're thrilled to be seeing this. Bright eyed, eager, some taking notes, faces all glued to the show below. Some have coffee, a girl in the front row is eating an apple, the chat amongst themselves, periodically debating the effectiveness of the procedure and statistical likeliehood the patient will recover fully.

She's into the hallway before she knows that her feet have moved her, outside sitting on the curb in the parking lot, sun drenching her shoulders, before she realizes she left.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

The code clock starts a third time, and his heart is absolutely racing, flying along with the seconds as he hunts through Archer's brain. It's the last parasite, and even though this surgery is going to come out looking like a success, it's been a gigantic mess from the start.

Archer's monitor's have been wildly sounding, sporadically, sometimes without an apparent reason. Other than he's rooting around in the most sensitive part of his body. His blood pressure drops, it soars, his heart keeps trying to stop, the cocktail of drugs he's on is too complex, and he's been under longer than desired. None of this is ideal.

"Got it," he mumbles to himself and latches on to the tiniest piece that got away from him. There's some applause from above, and in the room, his eyes catch the gallery and notice that his wife has gone missing.

Archer stabilizes once again and Derek refuses to let anyone else close. He personally escorts Archer into recovery, stations two nurses and his new trusty resident, and then exhales. Finally, the breath he's been holding in since this morning.

Stress drains from his body, leaving it shaky, eyes watering, he slides down the wall outside the room.

He did it.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

She isn't sure if she's going to be directed toward the morgue or a room when she asks where Archer wound up after finding out the surgery ended. But as she exits the elevator she can see her husband fifty feet away, head buried in his knees, scrub cap in hand.

She races forward, anticipation boiling over. A peek into the room shows her that her brother is still alive, unconscious, weaning off the anesthesia.

Finding a seat next to Derek, she nudges her head onto his shoulder, tears beginning to trail down his neck, soaking the hem of his scrub top. She feels his hand come up to pat her hair twice, and then it falls to the ground heavily.

She clings to him out of exhaustion, mumbling _thank you, thank you, thank you_ into his ear. Branding him, her hot breath burning his exposed skin.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_


	6. Things of Beauty Burn

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 _Things of Beauty Burn_

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A/N: See end. Enjoy-

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

Archer's immediate recovery is wrought with complications and tension. He's unconscious for the better part of a day, Addison keeping a relentless vigil. Derek has no idea what lies she spun up to get the time off work, but he's had to keep himself busy shuffling between two hospitals and making sure he doesn't spill the story to anyone. Which is a shame, because it's the best story he's had to tell since moving to this kingdom of gray skies. His most recent page back to his brother-in-law's bedside finds him standing off with the man who insists, through a heavy haze of drugs, that Derek didn't actually get all the parasites.

"Order a CT," Archer demands, the best he can through slurred and slow speech.

He's frustrated, Derek can clearly see that. And patients get frustrated and annoyed with recovery. It's a process, he tells all of them, from complicated emergencies to routine shunt placements. "I'm not ordering a CT, there's nothing wrong."

Addison is looking up at him with the eyes he's grown to loathe, pleading and wanting just the same. A sea of green and blue and obligation. Ready for him to drown in.

"It couldn't hurt," she urges, soothing Archer by grasping at his hand. He's dozing in and out of lucidity at this point, morphine taking him on an undoubtedly wild ride.

"It's unnecessary Addison, he needs to sleep it off."

"He woke up speaking French, Derek. And then got mad at the nurses when they couldn't understand that he wanted more water."

"Well, lucky for him you were here then."

"He says his head is killing him."

"I just drilled into it."

"He vomited and he can't see straight."

Derek takes the stool across the bed from his wife, and looks up to Archer's now sleeping form. "Those are all perfectly within the scope of his recovery. His post-op check-ins have been good, his fever is under control, his pressure is a little high, but you know all of this already. And he's on so many drugs I'd be more concerned if he could see straight and talk normal at this point. We'll continue to monitor him over the next twelve hours, if anything changes, I'll do the repeat scan."

"Fine," she mumbles to the wall.

He doesn't enjoy speaking to his wife like she's just another relative of a patient, but she doesn't seem to want to take no for an answer in the last 24 hours. He thinks of reassuring her that he's got this, that nothing will happen to her beloved brother, but then the words get caught in the vacuum of his throat along with so many other things he means to say. "Did you speak with Bizzy?"

"Susan," Addison clarifies. "They're out of the country, Spain, they're trying to get back."

She parlays it so well he almost doesn't catch it anymore. She lies with the greatest of ease. He thinks she honestly believes what she says sometimes. It's a trait of her childhood that's she's never grown out of, especially when it concerns her family. "I thought they were in Italy."

"Right," Addison replies whimsically.

It doesn't matter where they are. Spain, France, Antarctica. They aren't coming. Not for this, not for anything.

Derek gives her a placating squeeze on the shoulder, hands lingering for a moment near the silver chain of the necklace he bought her three years ago to make up for a missed anniversary and then promises to stay near his phone and pager in case she needs anything.

He's out of the room in under fifteen minutes, giving very rigid guidelines and strict instructions for concurrent check-ins to nurses he's never seen before. His trusty resident is still riding post-op with him, and Derek considers briefly learning his name before rushing out the door, trying to make it across town within his lunch break.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

The third night it's relatively calm in the CCU. Archer hasn't been moved, Addison has ducked out for the occasional patient but is back at his side as soon as possible. And always at night. The lights are dimmed, giving the illusion that a restful sleep will occur. Like check-ins that wake everyone in the room won't happen hourly, IV lines refilled, eyes checked, blood pressure, motor functions. Charted, charted, charted.

Addison finds herself reviewing it at one in the morning as the staff flutters around her brother. Derek came by at ten to examine Archer and to say that for once he was headed to their actual home for a shower and something other than cafeteria food and ceaseless coffee. He pecked her cheek, gave her a lukewarm smile and away he went.

She drifts off around two in the morning, awakens to the rapturous roar of the monitors in the room. Angry beasts signaling a descent into unknown territory. Archer is shaking, seizing. The resident she's come to know well rushes in, knees already looking weak as he shakily doles out demands. In the haze of settling the situation she wants to start barking orders, she wants the firmest of actions.

Nothing comes up through her throat except the distinct taste of the soup and crackers she had for dinner. She gulps it back down and assumes her role as a bystander.

Derek arrives 30 minutes later, meaning he didn't answer the first two pages. He explains due to intracranial pressure he's going to be forced to go back in and place a shunt, but it should be quick and the worth the risk of a second surgery.

Suddenly she's all alone in the darkened and dampened space, feet immovable on the sticky floor, the ivory blanket she had brought from home a puddle around her legs. As she draws a shaky breath in she realizes, not for the first time, that they may not escape the inevitability that everyone keeps belittling her with.

She's never felt more useless.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

Derek notices it one stuffy afternoon. He trudges up the stairs, tennis shoes forgotten and slapping against each level he ascends. He makes a note to call someone to come out and look at the air conditioner. His hair is clinging to his neck with perspiration and he knows he isn't out of shape enough to be done under by a staircase. It's just this side of uncomfortable that finds him stumbling into the master bedroom, groaning in disgust, he'll have to shower before the staff meeting that Ellis sporadically scheduled.

The curtains are drawn, drowning the air in a tinged blue. Derek squints at his wife as he whirls by her. And then halts, turns and inspects her more closely. She's breathing heavily, hair scrunched by the mass of pillows under her head. The blankets are rumpled and he can tell she's bothered by the heat too given the mess on the bed.

Flat on her back, dead to the world, he sees it for the first time. A hint of their future.

It's terrifying.

Addison is a woman Derek is convinced grew into her body, her curves. And sometimes she still seems a little lanky and uncoordinated even through what he's sure were years of etiquette classes. She doesn't like to talk about it. He imagines she wasn't the best in the class, something that would certainly eat at her and Bizzy.

There, sprawled, Addison in a pair of shorts barely covering her long legs and an old t-shirt that he can't place strictly as his or hers, is something he's never seen before. He creeps closer, places a hand in the warm air, then pulls it back with a jolt as she rustles, toes flicking the last bit of sheet away. If ever he dreamed of this moment, it wasn't this. His wife unconscious, him now five minutes behind schedule. She was supposed to show him, excitedly. He'd be swept away in the newness, the shiny adventure of it all.

The slight curve of her stomach hits him like a block of concrete. A cold shower, drenching him. Their child is real.

Everything shifts.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

Addison pushes her sunglasses up, holding her hair out of her face as it tries to whip around in the salty ocean air. Her eyes immediately reject the atmosphere and she squeezes them tightly shut. She feels an arm wrap around her waist, carefully avoiding the space where their child is flipping somersaults inside her. She turns to face her husband contemplating the exact reason he will not and has not touched her growing stomach unlike half of the of strangers in the godforsaken hospital but is interrupted by a man walking up the dock.

"You must be Derek," he says extending his hand forward.

They make their greetings and follow the man inside to the sales room. "You said this was fine," Derek hisses into her ear, face a contrived smile as they walk stride for stride.

"It is fine," Addison explains again. She doesn't give a damn about buying a boat. What she wants is to not be involved in it. Steve, as she has come to know him, makes some crack about how smart it is that Derek brought the wife that way he wouldn't he have to call and ask permission and Addison rolls her eyes.

It's going to be one of those afternoons.

She labors through the catalog, the shiny boats sparkling back at her in blues and creams and contemplates again why in the world she can't seem to decorate the nursery. The men are discussing slip rates and pre-owned inventory when she checks back in from the daze. Derek asks her what she thinks of the green one from seven pages ago and since she didn't care when she arrived an hour earlier and she certainly doesn't now she gives some flippant answer that makes Steve chuckle.

She's halfway through analyzing her lack of desire to plan furniture for their child when she hears, "What about a sailboat?"

"Derek, no."

It's the only thing she's objected to all day and it seems to propel him. He leaves to follow Steve to the marina outside again and Addison pretends to fumble with her phone as she trails. Her heels prick the wooden dock, making it difficult to walk in a stable manner. Derek is quick to offer a hand, but it's only a hand.

It's always only just enough, nothing more.

"A sailboat feels right, huh Addie?"

"You don't know how to sail."

"Yes, I do. And you do too. The Captain told me all the times you two would go out. He said you're better than Archer."

If there was a universe where she was into pleading then this would be the time. But instead she's here in this nightmare in Seattle, a city that, despite having had months to grow on her has yet to leave an impression. Steve looks excited to make a sale and it makes her even more annoyed.

"I won't be going on it anytime soon, so I hope you don't capsize and die."

It comes out as a tease, but she knows Derek can feel the fire beginning to build so he steers her away for a moment to argue in peace. In the end he wins, like always, and she finds herself apologizing to a man she doesn't really care for while they sign paperwork.

 _Sail la Vie_ was a little tongue-in-cheek for her liking, and Derek didn't like how small it was. _Whisper_ was the right size but too new for Derek, he was always onto something vintage. They settle on _Orion_. They both hate the name, but it's big enough for both of them, won't require insane amounts of maintenance because of declining age, and is available now which is something Addison didn't know was a requirement.

Steve tries to make a joke about naming their baby after the boat and Addison has had enough for one day. Derek tries to goad her into joining him for a maiden voyage but thankfully she has a surgery in two hours that she has to be back for. She gives him a quick peck for show and spends the car ride debating how it is that he can take the afternoon off to buy a boat but not for anything she asks of him.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

"Could've gotten it right the first time," Archer is complaining to Addison as Derek arrives.

"I did save your life you know, you could be a little grateful."

"From what I heard you almost let me die on the table about a hundred times and I'm not sure how grateful I should be considering your horrible stitching technique," Archer tells him delicately fingering his shaved head.

"Archie, stop it," Addison instructs, slapping his hand away, and then looks up at Derek to put him in his place. He defensively holds his hands in the air as though he's done nothing wrong and then returns to checking on Archer's progress since the shunt placement thirty-six hours ago. Normally, he'd like to discharge the patient, but Archer is special. Something he's been reminded of about a hundred times over the last twelve years.

"Addie, stop fussing," Archer stills her hands on the blankets and clears his throat. "Could you go get me something to drink. Anything but water. I've had enough water for a lifetime. Scotch if you can find it."

She nods eagerly and bounds from the room leaving them alone. It wasn't a stealthy plan, Addison must be exhausted to have not noticed what she was exiting from.

"She's nervous," Derek explains.

"She has reason to be."

They standoff in silence as Derek checks his patient's reflexes and pupils for what feels like the millionth time. "I'm returning home on Friday, I'll need all of my records forwarded to Dr. Allen."

"You can't do that Archer," Derek refutes, heaving his stethoscope back around his neck and jamming his hands into his lab coat.

"Yes, I can. And I am. You have no reason to continue holding me hostage here."

"Addison-"

"Addie does not need another thing to be stressed about. You've got her running in dizzying circles already thanks to your cross country voyage and inability to keep it in your pants."

"She told you."

"She tells me a lot of things."

"Don't tell Bizzy," Derek urges suddenly, the thought rising like a volcano about to explode. God, he can't believe she told Archer. Archer who cannot keep his damn mouth shut before they even told his own family. Archer doesn't care about his future niece or nephew, but Nancy and Amelia would be elated. Archer is going to force their hand, make them share something they've been keeping private from everyone. Until now.

"Montgomerys looks the other way when its none of their business, Derek. It's none of my business, just like me returning to New York is none of yours."

Derek finds a seat but feels his blood pressure rising. "You can't just up and leave."

"I've been here too long," Archer insists, looking small and insecure in his hospital gown. Addison brought him a robe but he's still in the speckled paper-thin sheet under it.

"Why'd you come here anyway?" Derek pushes. Archer is irritating and gets away with everything he does but he's chained to the bed by cords and wires. He's stuck now, a jail of modern medicine tying him down.

"She's my family. My only family, Derek."

It puzzles Derek how they always refer to one another as the only family they have, when in fact, they have a sprawling network of powerful and rich individuals sharing the branches and leaves of their family tree.

"I came to say goodbye. To check on her and make sure she was alright out here. She is obviously not."

"She's fine," Derek dismisses. "You weren't even going to tell her, were you?"

"She's miserable."

"You were just going to waltz in for the weekend and fly right out again. And what? Turn up dead in two weeks and make the rest of us deal with the consequences. That would have destroyed her."

"Instead you got to save the day. Stop complaining," Archer retorts, gathering his dignity as much as he can.

"You came here," Derek repeats, mulling it over in his head. Archer does seem to wander and philander, but he's rarely without some self-serving purpose.

"To say goodbye," Archer mumbles.

"No. You came here. You were having seizures, must have been for months now. You knew she'd notice. You knew she'd fight when no one else wanted to. You knew she'd move mountains for you. But instead of being a man and telling her, asking for help, you decide to try and give her a heart attack and leave me to pick up the pieces like always. Nice, real nice."

Derek's halfway to the door when Archer replies. "You're no better than I am Derek."

"Excuse me?" He checks the hallway for his wife, to ensure her cafeteria run doesn't involve her jogging to and from.

"I wouldn't exactly say you've been around picking up the pieces lately."

"You don't know anything about my marriage."

"Oh, but I do," Archer contradicts. And Derek swallows heavy. He probably does. "You're here in Seattle having some sort of mid-life crisis that shouldn't have to involve her except you've always been good at dragging everyone else into your pity parties. Nothing's changed. You're the same miserable asshole that left New York with his tail between his legs months ago. Does she even know why you wanted to leave in the first place?" Archer checks and then proceeds. "She's too good for you, always has been. And she'll figure it out sooner or later."

"Figure what out?" Addison asks as she reappears, somehow holding three cups, splattered tops looking like they have spilled all over various hallways trying to get back in a rush.

"Nothing," they reply at the same time.

"Derek was just explaining why he couldn't be bothered to get back down here the other night for more than an hour," Archer smiles easily, causing his sister's brow to furrow at the remembrance.

"Actually, Archer was telling me about the flight he's taking on Friday," Derek shoots back, causing Addison to refocus her fury.

"Archer-"

"You can forget about publishing this!" Archer yells at Derek's back as he leaves the room.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

Callie has him cornered in a scrub room. They haven't had a ton of interactions, he knows that she and Addison are friendly. He's pretty sure Owen dislikes him, but then, that guy seems to have some demons keeping him busy.

He's almost through with washing when she strolls in. "Dr. Torres."

"Dr. Shepherd."

She seems warm, a little bossy, from watching her in meetings and the few cases they've shared. He could understand why she and Addison have taken to one another. "If you're looking for my wife, she's in this OR in an hour."

"I was looking for you," Callie explains, blocking the doorway.

"What can I do for you?" She's eyeing him suspiciously and it makes Derek wonder if word of his stressed marriage has somehow leaked.

Callie bites her lip, fiddles with her bracelet and then begins. "I know you are probably already doing something, maybe back in New York, but I wanted to put together a little something for Addison and the baby."

"Oh," is the only sound Derek can make.

"Are you guys registered anywhere? I was thinking we could just reserve a conference room that way people can filter in and out if they need to. What kind of cake does she like? Did you find out if it's a boy or girl? How does next Thursday work? Or we could do it later. When is she due? I don't want to wait too late."

Derek gets lost in the first question and can't hear much of anything afterwards. Has time really gone by that quickly? A baby shower. "I...don't know."

"You don't know?" Callie presses. "You don't know what?"

Derek feels his heart begin to race as his mind starts to weave an elaborate tale. "Next Thursday is good," he decides triumphantly and Callie seems pleased by his reply. "We don't really need anything, Addison has that all taken care of and it's not too early. Thursday would be good. Yeah, Thursday."

"Next Thursday," Callie corrects, and pulls out of a notepad from her pocket, ready to drill him for more answers he's not sure of.

In the end, he plays off the gender as them not wanting to know, although Addison might already be privy to the information. He says her favorite cake is vanilla, she won't care about decorations or gifts and would probably like a minimal amount of games if there must be any. When they were younger, back when everyone was having children and it passed them by, Addison had a baby shower to attend almost every weekend it felt like. He can't remember what she liked or didn't like, can't remember really if she mentioned anything at all other than her thankfulness that they were over by the time she saw him again after. Sam and Naomi tried to get him to attend the one for their daughter, Maya, but he caught a surgery instead and was told he didn't miss anything amazing.

Callie tells him she'll hunt him down again with another round of questions, and it feels like a threat. Derek tosses the towel in the hamper praying that this isn't another excursion that will infuriate his wife.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

"So, how have you two been?"

"Good, really good," Addison jumps in, her legs crossed toward Derek who is in the adjoining seat. He reaches for her hand with a smile.

"Putting in the time, putting in the work is paying off," the therapist elaborates on their behalf, scribbling something on the paper sitting in his lap.

"We've been hiking, we saw Mailbox Peak, we went fishing, bought a boat, found a cute little bakery by the house that makes the best croissants," Derek shares with him, oozing charm that catches Addison a little off guard.

"Good," their doctor notes, "And I see we have a little surprise there," he says pointing in Addison's direction.

"Yes, a good surprise," she grins, a hand spreading over her stomach. "Early December."

"Well, occasionally it takes couples something life-altering to really get perspective. I'm glad this has done that for you. I hadn't heard from you both in quite sometime, I have to admit I was concerned."

"Just a little busy," Derek laughs lightly, his hand coming to a rest, palm warm and familiar on top of her hand.

"Let's talk about what's changed, Addison how do you feel you both are doing at making time for one another, to reconnect?"

She wants to scream. Instead she offers simple answers that seem to abate much further prodding. This was her idea after all, returning to therapy. Just for one session, she had assured her husband. She hadn't strictly foreseen being dishonest, but there was suddenly something so important about convincing the one person in Seattle who knew what they were struggling that things were better.

No one needs to know that Derek still spends five out of seven nights at the trailer or the hospital, that he won't talk touch her but for the briefest of brushes on the arm or back and only at work, or that every time she tries to tell him anything about his child he magically has something better to be doing.

They have potential for collateral damage now.

Better to settle this and be done with it.

Derek's being asked a few leading questions while her mind floats away. He's playing with her fingers, proving something, when he catches her ring and stops.

They run out of things to discuss before their timer signals the end of the session. Derek escorts her to the elevator, hand hovering above the small of her back, her coat draped over his arm. She's just finished pressing the button for the lobby, the doors sliding closed, as his facade falters.

"Was that really necessary?" Derek asks, annoyed. "Waste of an hour," he mumbles, not to himself.

"You need to get back to the trailer-"

"You know I need to have those blueprints finalized before Wednesday morning, Addison."

"How could I forget?"

"Here," he says fishing around in his briefcase. "You take the car, I'll call a cab."

She takes the shiny metal, shaking her head, "We have a meeting about the Russell case at 7:30-"

"I know that."

"Ellis is expecting both of us."

"I said I'll be there," Derek grumbles as the doors open again, the lobby devoid of everyone except the security guard.

He takes a few steps, sets down his briefcase, and then helps her get her coat on. She can feel him tugging at the strands of hair that have gotten caught under the collar. He pecks her cheek while holding onto her elbow. The black coat won't button anymore but he still pulls it tight around her before grabbing both of their things and heading outside. She's dizzy from his presence, knees a little wobbly as she trails behind him. He tells the man by the door goodnight and waits for her to catch up.

His slightly longer hair blows in the chilly evening wind the same way it did in New York. He smells the same as he did five years ago when he used to curl up around her in bed under their heaviest blankets during that awful snowstorm. His eyes still look impeccable against that damn old tie, and his left eyebrow still has a slight scar.

He looks exactly like the person who used to love her.

She tells him goodbye with watery eyes and stumbles on tired feet to the car across the street. She doesn't have the heart to make sure his cab arrives, barely manages to keep her vision cleared for the short drive home.

By the time she arrives, ever alone, she has a plan.

 ** _.._**

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 **A/N:** This story time jumps. Meaning it moves forward and backward in its telling. Everything, however, thus far has been pre _If/Then_. In my 8,000 viewings of that single episode my takeaway was that Derek and Addison are nothing short of straight up hostile with one another, but we are never given a reason (I don't believe in the affair in this universe). I understand that we are rooting for them to pull through this, but keep in mind we haven't even hit their breaking point yet, so they can't get it together before they fall apart (lord, do they try though). There's some moments, like all of real life where it feels like it's working, which is where the title comes from. Next chapter we speed up into the hurricane. Thank you for your patience and your warm reception to my return, I'm older and not as fast as I used to be so your reviews mean a lot. Thanks!


	7. Still Secrets Remaining

_**..**_

 _Still Secrets Remaining_

 ** _.._**

 ** _A/N: Two scenes take place in the present of If/Then._**

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Mark is looking at her in abstract horror. In the afterglow, maybe it wasn't the best plan. She can see the fury beginning to build in his eyes as she dabs her face with the tissue once more. Maybe if she sniffles enough she can get out of this, that used to work with him. Just the threat of emotion was enough to send him running for the hills.

"Wh-at did you do?" He stammers angrily after watching Derek storm from the room.

She doesn't have an answer. It seemed right at the time, it felt like the only beacon in a sea of tumultuous waves that she's been trying not to drown in. She's a little furious that Derek believed her when she implied it was Mark's baby, well when she told him it wasn't his and he immediately jumped to thinking it was his best friend's. The fact that Mark came strolling out shirtless didn't help the situation, but that's nothing that hasn't happened in their storied past.

"Addison," Mark shakes his head. "What are you doing?"

"Letting him go," she whispers and then Mark is already halfway out the door too, struggling to get his damp, ruined shirt back on.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

"Archer's settled," Addison announces, coming in through the kitchen, dusting her hands off like she actually did something.

"Great," Derek replies, a cup placed in front of his bowl of fruit.

Addison insisted that Archer stay in the guest house situated above the garage for a few weeks after she talked him out of flying home. She hired around the clock supervision, got the place decorated and comfortable, and ordered his favorite brand of coffee from somewhere in South America all in under 48 hours. Money is truly amazing sometimes, he has learned that from her. It can do things, both good and evil. He tries to use his for good, that is when he isn't busy ignoring the fact that he now has so much of it.

Since coming from relatively nothing he's upgraded his thread count in bedding, his wardrobe, much needed hair products, and his vehicle to something with an actual motor from a bike. But he still likes simple things- a day out in the woods, a game of pick up basketball, a good paperback book. He likes to think he hasn't changed that much. But that day in New York,months ago, the frosty wind biting the back of his neck, he couldn't discern his actions from that of a total stranger. And he's had plenty of time to try. A lot of free time spent at the trailer.

Archer presents a problem. Always has, always will. His dying devotion to his sister means he isn't willing to hear anyone out on any matter than concerns her. Even if he only thinks it concerns her, when it very much does not. And Archer has never been above using someone's secrets against them for long term gain and short term entertainment.

"Hey, do you still have that old leather journal you never used?"

"Somewhere," Derek says uncommitted. It may be around. It also may be in a dumpster.

"I was thinking maybe Archer would like to work on his next book while he recovers."

"Doesn't he use a ghostwriter?"

"Yeah, but maybe just for some ideas."

"I'd buy a new one," Derek laments. It was an odd gift, from a year ago, from Kathleen who thinks he needs to "journal his feelings instead of running from them". He's pretty sure it's stuffed in a box in the garage and they'll never find it.

"Ok," she replies, hair lit by the refrigerator she's poking her head into. "Do you think he'd want the rest of these apples, we have too many, we'll never eat them."

"I don't know," Derek moans. She's always so excited when he's around. And a complete disaster when it's her whole family.

"I'll ask later, he is supposed to be resting now. I told the nurses they were free to use the main house if they needed anything, ok?"

"Yeah." The main house grates on his nerves. It's just a house. And there happens to be a room situated on top of the garage overflowing with all of their old memories and pictures of better times that they are using for their first and hopefully only guest to visit them in Seattle.

"Their shifts vary-"

"Addie, I'm sure you have it all under control." She smiles at him when she turns around, an apple for herself. "Relax."

"I just want him to be ok," she tells her husband.

"He will be. The hard part is over."

They stare at each other thinking about all the cases they've had where the surgery was the easiest part but neither says anything before she drifts to the living room, apple forgotten on the counter. He doesn't know how to be more reassuring for her, to her. It's never been this close to home before, it's never been in his home.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

She does try and thank him. Many times. Many ways. But nothing seems to ease the pain he's had of the last week wherein her brother put him through the ringer with one of the most bizarre cases of parasites in the brain and now won't let him tell a single soul.

She tried scheduling a lunch at his favorite place near the hospital after checking to make sure he had the afternoon off, but he didn't answer her page. She tried to entice him with a little get up he had been dying to see her in, but was too tired to stay awake until he got home, and fell asleep in the middle of the living room, tied into lace and delicate silk. And she verbalized her gratefulness at least ten times before he begged her to stop talking about it.

She figured if he couldn't discuss it, he probably didn't want her bringing it up. But she feels indebted to him. Chained to him in appreciation of his skill and for literally saving her brother's life. And that's a hard thing to repay.

There are a few things that Derek's always wanted that she's been loathe to oblige. A nurse's costume, that old ratty sports car his uncle owns, naming their first child after his mentor from their second year- Melvin, and a dog. Man's best friend. If she was going to budge on any of them she should probably swing on by a Halloween supply store but instead finds herself at a shelter, the piercing barks pounding in her ears.

It smells disgusting, she notes, as she follows the the shelter director, sidestepping a suspicious puddle with her $900 shoe. He's explaining how animals come to be here, what they do for them when they arrive, and which ones are available for adoption. They vary in sizes, colors, breeds. Most of them either ran away or were surrendered because people couldn't handle them. Which means to Addison that she probably couldn't handle them either.

Their backyard is large, and fenced, and largely unused as of yet. A dog would enjoy it she thinks. She sits with at least three different ones, all but one jumping up onto her lap boisterously before she thinks better of the whole thing. On her way out she walks through the hallway full of cats and decides that seems more their speed. Or hers really, since her husband is never home.

She reasons that if he wanted a dog, really wanted one, he would have tried to bring one home already at some point in their lives. James gives her the basics while she scribbles her signature on copy after copy of paper, but later she finds herself googling in the car all about cat needs while her new housemate scratches at the cardboard container holding him in.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

"I need you to have lunch with the president of the board of the Wallington school tomorrow," she tells her husband as he saunters into the attending's lounge.

He looks around, checks for witnesses, before replying. "I did that last week, went great remember."

"That was the Weston school," Addison corrects.

"How many of these are we going to do? It's a preschool Addison, not med school."

"Is our child's education not important to you?" She challenges, setting aside her magazine, noting that she can hear footsteps in the hallway.

"It is," he grimaces with a pained smile as Arizona Robbins joins them. "Just tell me when, ok?" He kisses the top of her head and takes the seat next to her, stealing half of her sandwich.

She smiles back knowing that the sandwich has mustard on it and he's going to hate it. Normally, that's not something she's into but the baby wanted to try it so she did. And she found it wholly unappetizing as well.

"Are you guys still interviewing at preschools?" Arizona chats excitedly.

"You can never be too prepared, right Addie?"

He's grinning at her, gagging on the bite he's taken, washing it down with water, and she wonders what preparation he's done for the baby. Read nothing, as far as she can tell. Forgot to join her for the birthing classes she started two weeks ago. Hasn't built the crib or even looked around to discover that their child, as of now, has no place to sleep of their own. He hasn't approached her on the safety of current car seat models or debated how long a pacifier is really handy for. They've haven't decided on sleep training, on whether or not they think bottles are evil, or even discussed possible names.

"Exactly," she says, slapping at Derek's hand when he tries to slide her pudding cup out of view.

"I really like the Bryson school," Arizona tells them, beginning to lay out all of the reasons it should be a better choice than the ones they've already looked at.

Derek gets stuck having lunch with them. He's doting and funny, naturally filling in the silences with witty remarks and thoughtful questions. When they finish he darts from the room without so much as a goodbye. He says he hopes their child becomes a doctor like them, that he likes the name Theodore, and that he hopes their baby has her hair. All of which he's never managed to mutter to her before now.

It sends her into a tailspin that she can't recover from.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

Meredith Grey has got to be the most annoying resident of them all. Or maybe she's just jealous. But she cannot listen to another minute of when this girl thinks her boyfriend is going to propose. This whole god damn surgery has been a debate between her usual go-to Kepner and Grey about where it will happen, when, what he'll be wearing, and Addison is willing a stitch not to hold and drench them with blood so they will shut the hell up.

She tells them she will close on her own, and to both go round on her post-op patients. Anything that gets them out of the room. The ancient scrub nurse also looks relieved. At least there can be two of them reveling in the regrets of other lifetimes.

The worst part she realizes, just about to declare the surgery a success, is that with Hunt and Torres out sick she has four more surgeries today with those two buffoons. And nothing to quell her rising desire to outright throttle them. She spends her time scrubbing out devising a strategy to keep them legitimately separated.

She picks wrong when she elects to have Grey occupy the interns with rounds and lab work and keep Kepner to herself. Mostly because Kepner already knows the way she works and she has to yell less with her around which is understated but important given the levels of exhaustion beginning to pull at her eyelids. Ellis, however, informs her how vital it is for Meredith to have a fleshed out training program, to which Addison does not dare disagree and swaps them mid-day.

She regrets it almost immediately. Grey is bubbly, and talkative, and not without talent. But if ever there was a day and a city and a time that Addison wasn't interested in making small talk with an inferior, now is it. She tries to be good with the underlings, tries to teach and not assume and give them the time of day. Despite her upbringing, people in those positions, in those situations can help. And she's supposed to train them, she's being paid for that at least.

She's two minutes into this crash ovarian torsion when the girl starts in again. "Where did Dr. Shepherd propose?"

"I'm sorry?" Addison asks, looking up, keeping the scalpel steady, there's no way she's going to be able to save this ovary, it's been decaying too long.

"Your husband, Dr. Shepherd, where'd he propose? Did he? He's always so grumpy."

Grey is astute, she'll give her that. Grumpy would be an understatement.

"We call him McDreary-"

Addison laughs. And laughs. And then has herself a few more laughs. It's a very apt nickname. Her staff is looking at her like she's crazy, and she's well on her way to that state of mind so she clears her throat and commands a solemn tone. "Dr. Grey do you want to be a surgeon or do you want to sit here and talk about the men in our lives."

"Surgeon."

"Then hold that retractor like one."

"You can have both right?" Grey asks her later as they scrub out.

Sure, she has a marriage and is a surgeon. She's doing way better at one than the other though, which she doesn't mention, just assures the resident that you can be both a doctor and a wife. The titles are relevant, even if it's nothing more than that lately.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

Addison names the cat Oliver. Because she won't be using it or Olive on her unborn baby and it seems dignified enough for her feline companion. He came with the name Toby but it was all wrong. Oliver likes tuna, napping, and chasing a purple feather toy the kid at the pet store said he might enjoy. She's got him curled around her legs, on top of a blanket, browsing a catalog trying to decide if she needs monogrammed blankets. A debate she has been having with herself for three months and has made no progress with.

"Addie, I'm headed out," Derek announces, racing down the stairs, gym bag over his shoulders.

"-kay," she says, not bothering to look in his direction. No point in asking where he's going or when he's coming back. She hears his shoes screech to a halt. And she can't even remember how many times she's asked him not to wear them inside the house.

"What's that?" Derek points to the white, fluffy creature currently wound in a ball.

"That's Oliver."

"Do we know Oliver?"

"We own Oliver," Addison elaborates, but barely.

"I'm allergic to cats Addison."

"Huh," Addison shrugs. She's pretty sure she would have recalled that after fifteen years together but there's never been a time where she's seen him have a reaction or mention an affliction involving cats. He's over-dramatic, at times, with change. She's keeping Oliver anyway, pets are supposed to be good for children. "He can be mine then," she offers weakly, feeling a little bad, and he just walks away.

Like usual.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

Derek is stuck between misery and relief when Mark joins him at the bar. He's been entertaining Ellis Grey's daughter who is apparently having as bad of a day as he is. He's into his fourth scotch when the bar stool next to him squeaks.

"Derek."

"Don't," Derek slurs, taking a glance at the man he used to call a best friend. That is until this afternoon when betrayal made an ugly appearance center stage.

"Or what?" Mark dares, ordering his first drink. "You'll hit me. You'll never win-"

"That's right, I never win." Derek tells Meredith and looks back over at his ex-friend. "You know what, you can have her. Best of luck."

"Have her," Mark repeats, and then takes a sip.

"Go ahead, you take what you want all of the time. Why should this be any different than Jenny Marshall-"

"That was second grade, Derek."

"And Holly Richardson-"

"Fifth grade."

"And Jennifer Campbell," Derek continues, not discouraged.

"Ok, that one is fair. But look I saved you from a hurricane if you think about it. I still don't know how she managed to catch a yacht on fire."

"Just leave Mark. Leave and take her with you. I never want to see either of you again."

Derek returns to nursing his drink, hands playing with the peanut shells on the counter. He's well on his way to drunk, but not nearly numb enough to not feel this pain.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

Despite his best instincts, Derek finds himself knees deep in the garage, surrounded by cardboard boxes. It was mostly something to keep himself busy and away from Addison and the amazingly recovering Archer who has become increasingly annoying over the last two weeks. Weaning him off narcotics and his lucidity have made living in the same space challenging since he didn't find their guest space to his liking and took up a closer residence on the third floor. The third floor that was blissfully devoid of people and furniture, full of spiderwebs and dusty windowsills.

It sent Addison into a spiral, trying to balance getting that space up to her brother's idea of elegant, and finishing the quints case that she had been roped into a month previously. It was one of the few times, so far, in Seattle where they had been able to work together and Derek was reminded, not for the first time, what an unparalleled doctor she had turned into.

She commands a presence, always has, but in the OR she's calm and calculated and refined. She's sure of what she's doing, confident in the outcome, and handles tough cases with a poise he knows from experience was hard to develop. Watching her dictate specific medical paths for each baby, seeing her study an array of papers spread over their dining room table, eavesdropping as she explained the fate of one baby to its mother, it'd been interesting.

He lauded her ability to pull through four out of the five children, monitoring them through various surgeries with arrogant surgeons who at times thought they knew better than her, himself included. They won't go home for months yet, but they are all stable. Sometimes, when she's gone home for the night, he visits them, sits silently, marveling in their sheer strength and determination to live.

Everyone said they made a wonderful team, that they were uniquely the best suited pair of surgeons on this coast. And it seemed that way, for a week. They could communicate again without words, agreed on almost everything, even shared dinner in her office a few times. It was the only time Ellis has seemed to approach him and his work with anything other than a sneer and clever remark over his perceived laziness.

But now he's back to square one with work, waiting around to be needed, hoping someone slips and hits their head, looking forward to ER pages like a hungry resident. He kind of misses working with her, they used to do it so much more frequently. Before they got important, before they stopped seeking out cases that would have them side by side.

His mind drifts in and out of memories as his hands kick up dust. Thoughts of their first consult together after they were in their residencies, the dinners they used to have in the cafeteria, too tired to leave the hospital. He's made it through an entire wall of things, old bedding with the sheets he hates, wedding presents from her family that never found a place in the brownstone, his old baseball mitt, photo albums that have people that he hasn't recognized in years looking so happy that they're complete strangers now.

He takes a desperate dive at the old dresser. They have a new bedroom set here, it's lighter and more to Addison's liking than his. He knows that he saved that stupid journal somewhere but is out of boxes unless he wants to get on a ladder, and he very much does not, but he also doesn't want to go inside during cocktail hour and have to pretend to care about dinner plans and have an opinion on Vietnamese food versus Japanese food, because his vote isn't going to count.

There are old socks, a pair of which he snags, they'll be useful when he goes out fishing. There are empty drawers, there's an old belt of Addison's that came from a different decade, and there's a manila folder. In the top left drawer, her side, but devoid of her belongings. Curiosity gets the best of him, though in hindsight, it shouldn't.

There's a pit in his stomach when he peels it from the drawer, ragged paper tearing a little as he fumbles to get it open. He doesn't know what he's expecting be it an old forgotten certificate for a random achievement, of which she has thousands, maybe an old relic from her childhood, or something sentimental from a patient that she never shared.

All of those would be normal.

The divorce papers he finds, though, her signature scrawled ten pages back, leave him grasping at the corners of the dusty wooden dresser and grappling with reality. He shoves them back together, notes the date, almost two years ago, and tries to put everything back the way it was, but his heart is pounding too loudly, rattling against his chest.

His hands become sweaty, knees weak, as the bottom drops out.

Suddenly, overwhelmingly, he's careening in a path of darkness.

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

 _ **A/N: So some more fun with Derek. He's a good punching bag. And Addison gets her cat, because if ever someone needed a companion it was her. Next chapter we get whatever made Derek want to move, the baby(!), and more guests. Thanks for sticking around!**_


	8. Longest Year

_**..**_

 _Longest Year_

 ** _.._**

 _ **A/N:** Hi! I'm so sorry I dropped off the face of the world for a bit, but I'm back, and this thing will get finished. This is our longest chapter yet and I put time markers at the start of each section because this chapter jump, jump, jumps all around. I owe my fellow Addek revolutionaries about a hundred reviews and I'm excited to spend my first free afternoon catching up. This part is real dark in some places and went through many rewrites, but we are in the home stretch of these idiots getting their act together. Enjoy-_

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

 _[present]_

Addison likes being early. A hallmark of her type A personality she enjoys being where she's supposed to be before others so she can analyze the coming events. Sometimes, things gets in the way. Especially as a surgeon. She's adapted to off the cuff changes and radical schedules that can begin peacefully, blissfully sleeping in, to being elbows deep in a body cavity under an hour later. It used to be upsetting and jarring. Now it's just life.

So it would figure that her child decided early would be a better time to arrive than being punctual, or late. If she could though, she would change the fact that she's going to miss the second act of this ballet and that Arizona, who begrudgingly accompanied her, now has become witness to the beginning stages of her labor.

Never in the plan she had agonized over was having her child at Seattle Grace. There was a private birthing suite at the smaller hospital across town where Archer had his surgery already reserved. Mixing business and pleasure seemed distasteful and they were fully equipped to deal with every request she had made so far. Plus having the ridiculous interns seeing parts of her that should remain covered sounded horrific. She did have to return to work after this was all over.

Arizona, however, cannot wrap her head around why in the world she would want a "less than" hospital for her so-far textbook baby. She could probably give birth in a parking lot and everything would go perfectly. They arrive at work, at the place that knows none of her secrets, and Arizona scurries off to figure out where Derek has gone to as Addison fills out all of the paperwork that she's already completed once, elsewhere.

And if labor wasn't annoying enough on its own, with the pain and the poking and prodding, Kepner screeches to a halt in front of her out of breath.

"It's time," she spits excitedly. "I thought you weren't due for another week."

"Yes," Addison smiles grimly. Her contractions are coming a little faster than anticipated, considering this is her first child, and she's suddenly very grateful she didn't try and make it through the second half of Romeo and Juliet.

"Where's Dr. Shepherd, does he know you're here, did you page him, I saw him in OR 3 about an hour ago, I wonder if he's still in there, he was working with Meredith today and I haven't seen her-"

"Kepner."

"Yes? What do you need? I'll get it."

"Shut up."

"Ok."

"I'm going to go to my room now, don't return unless you've got my husband. And page my team and tell them to stay away."

April looks puzzled and Addison doesn't have time to care. She's whisked away in a wheelchair, giving instructions to find the night nurses with whom she doesn't have as much interaction with, like that'll make it less awkward. She says yes to the epidural, she's no one's hero right now, and settles back against the pillows for a few minutes, wires uncomfortably attached everywhere as they scurry off to find the anesthesiologist.

"I looked everywhere," Arizona tells her breathlessly minutes later. "He's done with his surgery, but he's not with the patient or their family, he's not in the cafeteria, he's not charting, he's not in his office. No one has seen him in the last twenty minutes. Why are you smiling?"

"Check the roof."

"Check the roof, I need to check you," Arizona reaches for the thin blanket covering her legs only to have it jerked away.

"I'm fine, for now. You should check the roof, for Derek, he goes up there sometimes after long days or tough cases."

She loses the battle, learns she's further along than anticipated, and that Arizona has no other plans this evening other than delivering this baby. She should be thankful, Arizona is an excellent doctor and a wonderful coach from what she's seen but as Addison squeezes her eyes shut she wishes for the anonymity and solitude that the other hospital would have provided. They don't care that her husband stormed away from her three weeks ago and they haven't spoken since. They wouldn't even care if he showed up, and part of her hopes that he doesn't bother to here either.

He does though, twenty minutes later, when she's seven centimeters dialated, looking shell-shocked and pale.

They're just going to have to pretend through this too, she realizes, hazily, if it doesn't kill them first.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

 _[two weeks ago]_

"Derek said you guys were waiting to find out the gender, I think that's great, there are so few genuine surprises these days," Callie gushes, one blue drink in a old-fashioned milk bottle grasped in her hand. "We were too excited, with Allegra, and then the boys, no way I was having twins without knowing what I was working with, you know?"

"Yeah," Addison agrees, taking the room in. They decided on blue and cream. It could be a feminine blue, it could be a masculine blue. It's unisex. She doesn't hate it. She might have to ask Callie what shade this is for the empty nursery at home.

"You scared?" Callie asks, surveying the turn out.

People keep sticking their heads in, dropping things off, grabbing cake, saying a few words and then disappearing again. People she's never met, or at least cannot remember, leaving her things for her child. Items that she should already own, but undoubtedly, does not.

"Terrified," Addison confides.

Her baby shower is in a hospital conference room at eleven in the morning and her husband, who allegedly helped plan this side show, hates her. That's her life now. And that's the scariest thought of all.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

 _[three weeks ago]_

"Well, he's drunk," Mark announces, finding her in the same spot that he left her, the couch dipping into her side ungracefully. "Good job."

She's been through a box of tissue, maybe more, in the last two hours. Ellis was not kind when she threatened to quit, reminded her of the very tightly worded contract that was intended to keep her here for three years. And then Derek playing the jump to conclusions game wasn't enjoyable but should have been foreseeable.

"What'd you say Addison? I haven't seen him this upset since..." Mark trails off and Addison is trying to find a way to convey the unraveling in a way that won't make him absolutely disgusted with her.

"I let him go-"

"You said that already," Mark cuts in. He was never tactful. He doesn't care about people's feelings. He doesn't care about people, except the Shepherds. All of them. Loud, nosy, and he would kill for them. Derek, mostly. She probably should have taken that into consideration, in retrospect.

"I told him the baby wasn't his," she elaborates, catching his puzzled gaze.

"Is-"

"It's his. I just can't- we can't... a child should not be brought into our marriage. It was a mistake. One stupid night in the middle of the woods of a mistake." She can feel the tears beginning to brim again and she bites them back. Pregnancy has made her so hormonal and on edge, her twenty year old self would be disappointed. By a lot of things, really. "I thought he'd change, we'd change. He's always wanted kids. But he still wants nothing to do with me, and now he wants nothing to do with this baby. We shouldn't have to put up with that."

Mark is thinking it through and she can tell the exact moment he puts it all together. "He thinks we-" he motions between the two of them rapidly.

"Well, you don't have to be so disgusted with the thought-"

"Come on Red," he tells her angrily.

"It's not that ridiculous. He obviously thought there was something going on."

"You have to tell him," Mark insists.

"He's never going to talk to me again."

"He's never going to talk to me again," Mark corrects. "You have to tell him."

"I'm sorry," Addison laments. For so many things, but this, Mark, she probably should have thought about it for more than ten minutes. The repercussions might set her free, but they're going to tangle Mark in a web of distrust and betrayal and he doesn't deserve it.

"I'm going to tell you a story." Mark finds a seat next to her, clearing out all of the tissue, swiping them onto the floor. He seems calm when he should be punching walls. Instead of the scathing she foresaw, she gets quiet Mark, never something she's enjoyed outside an operating room. It's far more scary when he's the adult in the room. "Before you left New York, Derek lost a patient."

"He's a neurosurgeon," Addison refutes. He's lost a ton of patients. He's also saved people from the brink of death.

"Do you remember Ryan Lund?"

"Yes. I know he died before we left, Derek told me." Well, the nurse on the fifth floor told her, told her that her husband was in a shitty mood, barking at the staff and snapping at his residents, and to get him under control. But later, when she found him, he told her. She had to coax it out of him, but she learned that he had died during one of the many operations he had undergone for recurrent brain tumors.

"Ryan died during a routine shunt placement," Mark says solemnly. "He had to have the previous one removed-"

"Mark-"

"No big deal, just a normal Tuesday. They didn't even think twice about it. Probably the least complicated surgery of Ryan's life."

"Mark-"

"Addison, Jesus, let me finish."

"You don't have to finish," she tells him wringing her hands together. "Brent called two weeks before we left for Seattle."

"So you know," Mark realizes. He did never understand why they shared a malpractice lawyer.

"The Lunds just want money-"

"They want their kid back."

"He was on borrowed time," Addison says distastefully, hates herself for it immediately. Derek had been through no fewer than twenty surgeries with Ryan over the last seven years. They had a bond. The Yankees lineup, the occasional topic of girls now that Ryan was of age, future plans of college and what he would do when he could stay out of the hospital for longer than a week at a time. Ryan trusted his surgeon. And his parents did too. And they all had been close, earlier on. They even had shared a double date in the cafeteria once, not on purpose, but pleasant nonetheless.

She reviewed the case file one weekend when Derek was out of town at a conference in Boston, when curiosity got the better of her, stole it out of his office. Then their lawyer called. It didn't look good. And while she wasn't in the operating room with him, and he won't tell her what in the world happened, as a surgeon, she's reasonably sure that Ryan's death could have been prevented. Or at least stalled to a later date.

"Derek's in a tailspin, Addison. He has been for a long time, before Ryan even," Mark tells her, standing, wiping his palms on his slacks. "I don't think what you did was the right move."

"I-"

"I spoke with Ellis, she's terrifying," Mark finishes. "Know any good hotels?"

"You're moving to Seattle."

"Couldn't let the kid grow up without any of his family around."

"Uncle Mark," she manages a grin through a series of sniffles that come unintended.

Mark is a better person than she gives him credit for, there's no end to the things he'd do for the people he loves. She hears him begin to complain about the rain as he helps her to her feet.

Ryan was an unimaginable loss. She knows that. She wishes Derek could have trusted her with the truth instead catapulting them across the country into a situation that has scarred them far worse than the events that preceded it. And she hopes Mark can understand, even if he doesn't agree; that he can forgive her, for this.

"I want pizza. You wanna get fat with me?" Addison asks Mark as he helps her get her coat on. "Well fatter." She says, gesturing down to the scrubs that have not been kind on her figure.

"You just fishing for compliments, Red, or are you hungry?"

"Both."

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

 _[four weeks after Archer's surgery]_

"Addison, let him breathe," Derek grumps, looking over at his wife who is straightening Archer's tie and decreasing invisible wrinkles on his shoulders.

"Sheesh, she's acting like I almost died," Archer chirps, shoving his sister's hands away. "I'm just going to yet another doctor's appointment, not high tea."

"Unbelievable," Addison replies. "The only time you both have agreed on anything."

She swoops around the kitchen island, grabbing a banana and forcing it into Archer's grasp, glaring at him when he moves to open his mouth in protest. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

"I know, I know. It's not a big deal. You don't have to be at every one of these things. It's not like babies are going to continue to wait on me to have my head scanned so they can be born."

"Ellis moved the staff meeting, it's alright. I shouldn't be more than ten minutes late. And by the time they get you into the room, I'll probably be right on time," Addison calculates, looking to her watch and eyes darting around the room for her discarded heels.

"Rambling," Derek sighs as she disappears around the corner to the back door where he knows her shoes are not. She's been losing her mind a lot lately. Some combination of the baby and her brother's recovery had her brushing her teeth three times yesterday morning. And Derek's certain it's because she forgot about the first two rounds.

"I think they're in the closet upstairs," Addison declares, dropping her phone off next to Derek who places it in her purse so they don't have to turn the car around and come back for it. For a second time this week.

"We're going to be late," Derek tells her retreating form, Archer is pretending to be interested in the fruit he was given and some email he's reading.

"So which one of us is going to tell her," Archer asks cheerfully, cocking his head in Derek's direction once they can hear Addison on the landing of the stairs.

"Neither," Derek growls. He found the stupid divorce papers almost a week ago and he cannot unsee them. They dance in his dreams, his few precious hours of sleep, in the moments he shuts his eyes in the OR tying to formulate surgical plans. They've ruined his fishing, his morning walks around the neighborhood, his brief time in this home and ample time in the trailer. He had shoved them back from where they came but his fingers still burn with contact, his throat still goes dry when he thinks of losing her. Which he should take as a good sign, but it just seems to make him rail against her harder, for wanting to start a new life without him.

"It's a pretty good story," Archer commends. "I still don't know how you swindled your way out of that jail cell."

"None of your- just shut up Archer. I swear to God, you think I don't know all your secrets. Things you don't want Addie to know-"

"-so bitter, all the time Derek. Lighten up. I'm a Montgomery. Addison doesn't expect anything less. Addie doesn't expect anything at all."

"Anything less than what?" Addison asks, returning to the pair, shoes carefully in hand, not the ones she was looking for originally.

"Nothing, let's go," Derek remarks, snagging the keys off the counter, and his briefcase off the floor. Living here the last month has been tiresome, the threat of Archer and his fat mouth looming over every second; every interaction being judged by someone who has no business and doesn't know the whole story.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

 _[present]_

This hurts.

Far more than the child trying to make its way into the world from her body. Derek's grasping her hand tightly probably out of hatred, Arizona is saying something she can't understand between the pants that are barely supplying her enough oxygen to deal with this situation.

"Ok, Daddy get ready," she hears Arizona say and she thinks she might be about to become one of those women who throws up while in labor. "Big push Addison, I've got the head."

It's a blur. A haze. There's searing pain, someone is crying and it isn't her, and suddenly her hand drops to the sweat moistened sheets at her side and Derek is at her feet. And then everything goes numb, the edges of her vision beginning to dim under the strain. Monitors are annoying in the background, the clink of metal instruments, the murmur of the nurses and then, "It's a girl!"

It's an out of body experience. Watching from above, what should be the happiest moment of her life, and it's wrought with careful lies and secrets buried deep below the surface.

The wet bundle of anger gets placed on her chest and instinctively she peers down at the poor soul who just had the misfortune to be born into this nightmare. Fingers shaking she reaches up to map the child's face, but her eyes are glued on her still husband, next to her side who is wearing the biggest smile since they moved here.

"She's perfect, congratulations," he gulps, hand hovering just above the baby's chin. It doesn't make contact through, and then the baby is taken and there's still work to do here and Derek has disappeared to the hallway in the name of being out of the way and steadying his feet.

Her, a team of people she didn't want around, and her baby girl off in the corner being tested already.

The tears fall, though she tries to will them back.

"You did great," Arizona says patting her knee, "She's the picture of health, and gorgeous. That hair."

"Thank you," she manages through shock and shaky limbs, her mind is a ticking time bomb recalling the day's events.

It was certainly not what was planned for on this chilly, drizzling December morning, the sun creeping over the horizon, through the shaded room.

"Does she have a name?" Arizona asks, a marker in hand, and Addison figures she must look exhausted enough for the Spanish Inquisition to stop before it begins. "We'll just put Shepherd for now."

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

 _[three hours before]_

"I want to walk," Addison tells Derek, hands gripping the bed railing. It's one in the morning, the room is dark and Arizona had the audacity to tell her to rest. Like contractions weren't trying to absolutely destroy her.

"Go ahead," Derek grunts, looking down at the paperwork in front of him. He practically drug his entire office in here after they retrieved him from the roof. He's hardly said anything, and everyone thinks he has "New Daddy" syndrome and is adorable.

He has "I Hate My Wife" syndrome, and it's rotting the inside of her soul every time someone comes in the room to check on them, to dote over the happy couple and their soon to be child. Callie and Owen, Kepner, even Ellis and Meredith Grey came with Richard though it clearly made them both uncomfortable.

"Where's Mark?" Derek asks, looking straight down. "Didn't think he'd want to miss the birth of his child. But maybe he's busy off somewhere else with someone else."

Mark called, back in New York wrapping things up, wished her luck and told her he'd see her soon and that she needed to figure out a way to explain to Derek what she had done.

"Look Derek, I didn't plan this," he stifles a laugh at her. "I didn't. I wasn't going to have the baby here."

"Sure."

"I don't want to be doing this anymore than you! Why don't we just tell them."

"Tell them what? That my wife is a whore and that our lives are in utter despair and great news, now there's going to be a helpless child who doesn't deserve any of it making its presence. Don't you say a word, Addison, you've lost the right. I'll deal with it when I want to. It's the least you could give me. Actually, the least you could give me would've been going back to New York but it's too much to ask that I just get some peace and quiet to think this through."

"I'm going for a walk," she mumbles, shuffling to the door with her own IV pole. It's the most he's said to her since it all fell apart.

"Have a great time."

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

 _[one year ago, Boston]_

"Alright, Doc, you are free to go," the officer announces, to the group of men he's been checking out all night. One broken nose, one case of athlete's foot, and one severely inebriated individual who has slept through everything.

"Ok Roger, I'm not sure about that mole. You really should get that looked at by someone who specializes in dermatology."

"I will," the man grins, homeless, missing teeth, but now a friend.

All-in-all, it wasn't a great evening, but the police at this precinct have been very hospitable, allowing him to sit at a desk, asking random medical questions to keep his mind off the fact that six hours ago he got arrested in a very public bar after a very embarrassing series of events.

There was a conference. There was a woman, petite, brunette. She was interested, Archer had commended when he swaggered over with his flavor of the week hanging off his arm. Archer had just gotten off stage, Derek stuck around a few hours after his presentation, another one tomorrow, to grab a drink or seven. Archer didn't judge, didn't even think of it, just nodded his way hours later.

Her name was Victoria. Her parents were from Puerto Rico. She was a third year resident at some hospital that Derek forgot as soon as he heard it. She graduated with honors from U Mass. Then Harvard. Her eyes had flecks of gold swimming in cocoa brown. She was impressed with his study on brain mapping, had been watching his career, heard about him in a lecture, which overwhelmed him with the reality of his age.

It was all very flattering though. He's wearing his ring, she knows who he is, and none of it seems to matter after the third drink. There have been temptations over the years, but he's never strayed, not once. But this woman, this Victoria, was different. She listened to him, heard the compassion in his voice as he lost control when describing the death of his patient, Ryan. She placed her warm palm over the back of his hand as he recalled the moment they pulled them off the boy's body and someone across the room shouted the time of death.

A stranger stealing that from him.

He felt a connection with her, she was so much easier to talk to, no judging, no speak of what he could have done differently, no sparring. He followed her to her apartment across the city. And stood in the poorly lit hallway. It was a moment where it all shifted. And he knew.

He wasn't going in. But he wanted to. He hadn't touched her yet. But he wanted to.

He wound up in a bar seven blocks away after concocting a lame excuse and drunk himself into oblivion at the remembrance of his once wonderful marriage. His wife, who called to make sure he arrived safely, called after his speech to see how it went, and called an hour ago to tell him goodnight. And never once did he answer. His voicemail played against his ear as he threw back another watered down drink. How could he do this, he asked himself over and over. How did they get here, to where he didn't even have an itch to hear her voice each evening.

Steve was a regrettable mistake. It all was, if he were honest. Derek should never fight, that's what Mark used to say, after various headlocks and kidney punches. He wasn't built for it. His face feels it now, the imprint of Steve's knuckles creasing his cheekbone. Pressed, he doesn't know what the fight was even about, just that the bouncer at the door didn't feel like dealing with any shit and called the cops.

It was probably about Addison. As everything is. Steve didn't know that though.

"Of all the sights," Archer greets, shirt untucked, tie loosened.

"Fantastic," Derek shakes his head.

"He said he knows you, offered to bail you out, I told him it wasn't necessary." Officer Peters remarks, scanning Archer.

"Oh he knows me," Archer laughs, "Calm down."

"It's fine," Derek agrees, taking his belongings from the gentlemen at the window. "Thank you."

"Thank you," the man nods.

"This is going to be the best," Archer laughs as they descend the steps outside, clamping a steady hand onto Derek's shoulder.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

 _[October, two months ago]_

"Derek, I really don't have it in me. Not today. Just, not today," Addison tells him, eyes still closed, after he shook her awake. She doesn't know what time he got here, she certainly didn't fall asleep with him next to her. She cracks an eyelid to reveal him in flannel, a puffy gray vest, and the blaring alarm clock proclaiming that yes, it is only five in the morning, on her one sacred day off.

"Addison, come on. I have a scone."

"Don't bait me with breakfast food," she warns. It's been a long week. It's been a long month. And she's only had one day off in it so far and it's three days from being over altogether. Her feet hurt, her back hurts, her brain hurts, she's at an annoying stage of looking mostly fat, and people keep touching her stomach without asking.

"There are so many scones downstairs. And muffins."

"Why do you hate me?" she moans as she rolls out of bed, slippers colliding with her feet. She stumbles along behind him, stubbing her toe on the lip of a stair and cursing her clumsiness.

True to his word there are scones, blueberry. And there are muffins, chocolate. And there is coffee, Brazilian.

"I'm not hiking today,"

"Me neither," he says, unfolding a newspaper and making a production of flapping the pages. He slides her a pen and the crossword and breaks the top off of a muffin.

"Is the world ending?" Addison asks, mouth half full of scone, Derek pouring coffee into two different mugs. "Are we the last people on Earth?"

"Can't a husband do something nice for his pregnant, overworked wife?"

"A husband can-"

"We need to be at the airport in an hour and a half. I thought you'd like to look presentable," Derek cuts her off before she can finish that he can't seem to do anything nice lately, not since Archer left almost three months ago and he doesn't have to put on a show. In fact, she's hardly seen him since the ceremonious departure.

"We're finally taking a vacation," she guesses as he grows annoyed.

"You forgot," he accuses. "It's the 28th."

"And?"

"My mother, Nancy, Kathleen, all of their loud children and dull husbands, ring a bell?"

"Oh no."

"Oh yes."

Addison tosses her scone on the counter, trying in vain to remember where she left her cell phone in the haze of sleep last night so she can call the housekeeper to come immediately. They hadn't wanted to host Thanksgiving, because it was too close to the due date and god forbid the motley crew was there for the birth. And they didn't want to be infiltrated during Christmas when they wouldn't be getting any sleep with a newborn. They kept them at bay as long as they could, over nine months so far, but decided they would host Halloween.

Which, in hindsight, Addison can't even remember if she took off. And the house is woefully under decorated for the children that will soon be arriving.

"Your phone is on the couch," Derek chuckles to himself, propping his feet up on the opposite stool.

"Do something-"

"Do what?"

"Go to the grocery store, find some pumpkins somewhere, call the housekeeper, call Grace and clear my schedule for the next few days. Something."

"I'll read," he decides, peeling his muffin wrapper and watching her scurry around the pillows on the couch.

"Derek I swear to God if you just sit-"

"Addie, relax. The gardener is bringing a truckload of pumpkins when he shows up in thirty minutes, I went grocery shopping two days ago, you should open the fridge more often, the kids will want to decorate with you, and you should probably call Grace, I don't think she likes me."

"Call the housekeeper-"

"She was here yesterday, there's nothing to clean. We're going to be fine."

He's so calm it is infuriating, but she gives up her hunt for the phone in the name of dashing upstairs to the shower. It'll take forever to get to the airport from here, and they cannot be late. She catches a quick glance at Oliver, where she left him, still curled up on Derek's pillow, and apologizes to him for the impending doom.

Hopefully, they'll leave without much damage.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

 _[present]_

Addison figures if she can keep her eyes closed most of time people will assume she's sleeping and leave her be. They took the baby to the nursery, to let her rest, they said, and she should do the same. Her favorite scrub nurse came and dropped off a vase of flowers, bright and cheery. There's the requisite balloon attached to a stuffed animal across the room on a chair and she's not sure where it came from. She may have drifted off.

"You guys settle on a name yet? I have the birth certificate forms."

Leave it to Arizona to just keep on chirping away even though the idea of a visitor is obviously unwelcome. Addison, despite having spent ample time in naming books, can't make this decision. She was almost positive that they were having a boy. And since Derek said he liked Theodore that one day during lunch, Addison was thinking Theo. But a girl, he never brought up, not with her or in her presence anyway. There's no family name she'd willingly inflict on the child. Derek's mother already has several grandchildren named after her and Beatrice does not belong in this decade.

"We have a few days, still," Arizona offers instead.

"When can we go home?" Addison asks, seeking desperately to be out of the limelight.

"The baby is good, your blood pressure is still a little higher than I'd like, I want to monitor you overnight."

"I'm fine."

"You're a very capable doctor Addison," Arizona commends, sitting on the bed next to her. "But your my patient right now, and I need to do what's in your best interest. You get home and it's all about the little one, someone needs to look after you. Now, if you've improved overnight, we'll get you out the door as soon as we can. Ok?"

"Alright," she agrees, tugging the blanket closer.

"Good, now do you need anything? More pillows, do you want me to go get your bag? I don't think Derek has made it home yet, he got pulled into an emergency a few hours ago."

The bag. The stupid bag. Filled with the softest blankets money could buy, silk and cashmere, a timely contribution from Bizzy. A unisex outfit that she got at the baby shower, that honestly leaned a little more masculine, a white fuzzy hat, the diapers, the pacifier, some decent pajamas for her instead of the three hospital gowns she is sporting.

Their very friendly and very aging housekeeper helped her pack it when she found Addison in a tornado strewn across the master bedroom. But she didn't even think to put it in the trunk of the car. She thought she had a week still. But the prospect of Arizona strolling into her almost sterile home, noticing that Derek's stuff is all missing, is not an option. "No, we have time, right? I'll have him go home when he's done and grab it."

Or maybe she'll just take her precious, nameless little girl home in the abhorrent blue and pink striped hat that's too big for her tiny head and the plain white shirt they have her in.

It'd be the most fitting option given the last thirty-six hours.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

 _[eleven months ago, New York]_

Surgery is missing a lot of its luster after Ryan, Derek finds. He doesn't think anyone else notices his lack of enthusiasm, he certainly hasn't dropped off in productivity, and he's still working on his brain mapping. But he can't make that connection, with patients, with his work. Even when it's a success, it doesn't feel like one. And the losses hit hard. He might be a little burnt out, he reasons.

He's just scrubbing out when he catches a glimpse of her, Victoria. He checks again to make sure, she looks different in a hospital jacket following around another resident whose name he doesn't know. She sees him and gives a small wave which prompts him to look down immediately.

After lunch, after another dull procedure, Derek takes the stairs, juggling his left over apple and a stack of charts. And then it's just them.

The apple falls, rolls down a few stairs, bruising its skin. She offers it back to him but his arms are made of cement and cannot budge.

"Hello."

"What are you doing here?" Derek demands.

She explains her recent transfer, how she's finding the city so far, asks for decent coffee recommendations which he doesn't give, and then tells him how honored she is to have the chance to study under him.

He loses the chance to respond as he hears a sickly sweet "honey" being trilled his way from the top of the stairs above him. Addison doesn't like to share and she's a little territorial. And they have a rare consult that he was headed in the wrong direction for.

"Sorry Addie, I dropped my apple," he says lamely as Victoria offers it to him again and he snatches it away with his free hand. "I'll be right up, I need to hand these chart off to Williams here."

She nods and exits, trustingly, and it makes his stomach twist.

"It's Morales," she corrects.

"I can't do this right now."

"Nothing happened, this doesn't have to be weird. We had a few drinks at a conference, I'm sure you could say the same for about seventy percent of the room. I'm here to learn."

"I have to go, I have a patient."

"I could assist-"

"No, I don't need you- I don't need a resident. Enjoy New York," he scurries away, up the stairs to find his wife, tail tucked between his legs, ready for the lashing he'll receive for being late.

It never comes.

He spends the consult unfocused and Addison elbows him once when its his turn to speak, to provide knowledge and outcomes. He's never able to discern if she suspects anything.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

 _[three weeks ago, 6am]_

It's a lot of little things lately. They grate on her nerves. How he never comes home, how when he does he barely talks to her, how he's judging her for not painting that stupid nursery when he's supposed to be helping.

"Can you just try and hear what I'm saying?" she seethes, fussing with the pearls around her neck. It's finally a good hair day, but the weather has her debating the tights she pulled on under the black dress.

"I'm listening," he replies fixing his tie in the mirror in the walk in closet's mirror.

"You're never listening."

"You want me to help with the crib, I heard you. I'm busy, Addie."

"I don't want you to help with it, Derek, I want you to build it."

"You could have just had it delivered assembled," he mumbles.

"And you could just try and make some effort around here, it's like I'm living alone-"

"I'm trying. I work Addison, you do too."

"Yeah but I don't spend all of my free time hiding from you," she alleges, slipping on a pair of heels.

"I'm trying," Derek sighs, defeated, choosing a different tie and tossing the old one onto the floor. "This hasn't been an easy transition, I'm-"

"You're fragile, I get it Derek, we all get it. I'm so sorry I asked for your assistance with our child. I wouldn't want to upset you and have you kill another patient."

It's too far and she knows it as soon as its out in the open. He looks torn between running and breaking something, but then he turns around.

"Yeah well, maybe you should dig those divorce papers out again, give me the chance to sign this time."

It steals her breath as she remembers where they are. She can't decide if she meant for him to find them, subconsciously, or not.

He's yelling at her that they're going to be late for the staff meeting, storming down the stairs loudly, before she has time to make up her mind.

"Great, just fantastic," she mourns as she joins him in the descent to yet another day of make believe, pretending to be the most well functioning and loving couple in the hospital.

She's exhausted already.

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

 _[present]_

"You lied," Derek accuses angrily, storming into Addison's hospital room.

He knew from the moment he saw her. Each time he visits the nursery between patients, when she's there, it just confirms his gut feeling. That's his kid in there. His little girl.

"Or could you just not keep us straight? Who you were screwing and when."

"Derek," she warns.

"I'll get a lawyer Addison. I want split custody. You don't deserve-"

"She's yours," Addison concedes as he paces the length of the room, his fists jammed in his lab coat pocket, stethoscope bouncing on his neck. "I won't keep you from her."

"You're god damned right you won't-"

"Derek," she says again, this time actually catching his attention. He looks like he was ready for a battle and now she's tossed his plan aside. "We need to talk."

 ** _.._**

 ** _.._**

 ** _A/N:_** _I'm back again! Hopefully that section entitled 6am made sense as the morning in which the episode picks up on. I felt like their entire angry day was a continuation of a fight or many fights that had been started and not finished. Because how in the world else is Addison a million years pregnant and just now asking Derek if he wants that baby, other than denial, which we all believe in. Next chapter- all the Mark, a glimpse into the happier future, and Oliver decides he hates Derek too._


End file.
